Berlin awakening
Every year about 40 000 people arrive in Berlin and try to find a living. Beyond the hype of glamour and politics Berlin is a working-class city. Traditionally most of it’s citizens do not own houses. Still today 86 % live in social housing ore privately rented flats. As in all globalized cities real estate run by hedge-fonds became one of the big businesses in Berlin. In the last five years rents increased about 50 % - means traditional tenants are evicted and no “normal” family is any more able to find a place to live. In this extremely tense situation activists remembered a wonderful and never practised article in the German Constitution: Art. 15 says “Land, natural resources and means of production may for the purpose of socialisation be transferred to public ownership or other forms of public enterprise by a law that determines the nature and extent of compensation.”Since March 2019 now activists campaign for a referendum to expropriate big private housing-companies, and it’s going rather well. Until mid-June they have to deliver 20 000 signatures (already completed), after proof by Berlin-Senate the Referendum can be started. The referendum needs the mayority of 35 % of the eligible voters to be successful. Already now the campaign provoked extensive political debates all over the country – because the situation is not better in other cities. And for sure, the traditional political scene is deeply shocked.