When voters pass a referendum, is the government tend to follow through?

In reference to this of course, but I’d be encouraged to hear that German governments lean toward respecting referendums: https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/09/27/fantastic-berlin-votes-expropriate-240k-apartments-corporate-landlords

4 comments

  1. Don’T forget that “the government” in this case is the government of Berlin – not of Germany.

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    Also “following through” is, If my understanding is correct, not so clear-cut as it looks in the first moment. There was no new, prepared law about which the referendum was about, just about the idea. The Berlin Senate now has to deal with the result and has the job to do *something*. What exactly that is is not determined by this referendum.

    Lastly: I am not a legal expert but I would be interested what the courts will have to say about these projects in the coming years.

  2. As much as I’d like to see this actually happen I’m not hopeful. There is no law prepared for the state assembly to debate or vote on, and in terms of political goals this idea only matches with Die Linke, but only if they haven’t moved too far right lately. I imagine it going something like the governing coalition bringing up the topic for five minutes, saying it’s not great for private business, and moving on.

  3. The only other referendum of this type I know about that happened in Berlin was one about the closing of Berlin-Tegel Airport. The referendum decided to keep it open, the government ignored it.

    As for expropriation, it’s a thing in Germany, it’s sometimes used for building highways for example, when there is privately owned real estate in the way. The government has to fulfill a lot of conditions to make it happen, though. It can only ever be the last option, e.g. you they’d have to make an offer to buy it, they’d have to discuss with the “Deutsche Wohnen” how a stop to rent inflation could be achieved without expropriation, offer alternative properties of equal value, etc.

    And then there are various legal ways the “Deutsche Wohnen” could attempt to stop this, like by fighting the whole thing in court, by *selling* the buildings in question to a third party, etc.

    I’m not entirely sure whether the people who caused this referendum were deluding themselves that it was going to work, or whether they knew it wouldn’t but were trying to put pressure on the government to do something about the housing crisis.

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