The planned merger of the two housing companies GWG and Gewofag to form Münchner Wohnen has already sparked many controversial debates in the city council – in the general assembly on Wednesday, the government and parts of the opposition argued particularly violently. CSU parliamentary group leader Manuel Pretzl denied Mayor Verena Dietl (SPD) her suitability for the gigantic merger project. Mayor Dieter Reiter (SPD) defended his deputy. He trusted her with the project “until the end, I will continue to do it, and she did it well too.”
The city council supported the merger with the votes of the city hall coalition. “Nothing stands in the way of the merger on January 1, 2024,” Dietl said at the beginning. “This means that what belongs together finally grows together.” In the free economy, mergers have the purpose of maximizing profits; They often take place in secret and the employees are presented with a fait accompli. In contrast, the Münchner Wohnen project is “the highlight of a merger” because the employees have been “taken along” in the process for years and because the company is oriented towards the common good with its focus on affordable housing.
Dietl’s speech was “filled with generalities,” criticized FDP parliamentary group leader Jörg Hoffmann. None of their theses, be it about hoped-for synergies or employee motivation, are concretely documented. He compared the merger of the municipal housing companies with that of Daimler and Chrysler in 1998; this failed nine years later. He is curious to see whether it will take “just as long” at Münchner Wohnen, I don’t think so. His group still rejects the merger, saying the city “took the wrong approach from the start.”
Anna Hanusch (Greens) tried to promote the project. The high pressure on the Munich housing market makes it “all the more urgent that we have stable housing in Munich”. The challenges could be tackled better together. Yes, initially there was “great persistence” in the two companies. But now she is “in good spirits that we have convinced a very large part of the workforce to follow this path”.
Pretzl (CSU) had great doubts about this. His group is hearing about “panic, frustration and refusal to work” from companies, and the frustration extends all the way up to the management level. “We are in the middle of a quagmire of problems.” Dietl celebrates a process that has not even begun yet, instead of naming the challenges that will face Münchner Wohnen after January 1st. She didn’t do herself any favors with her quote that what belongs together grows together. “I pray to God it doesn’t take as long as it took to bring East and West together.”
This enraged SPD parliamentary group leader Christian Köning. The largest opposition faction is throwing “buckets of dirt” on urban societies instead of doing constructive opposition work. The CSU is torpedoing the process and making “baseless allegations at every turn.” Tackling the merger required courage, “and I’m happy with how far we’ve come today.”