Red-Green-Red in Berlin: Many unresolved questions in the bag

Around three months after the election, things will get serious for the new red-green-red Senate in Berlin from today. The future governing mayor Giffey is spreading a good mood, but conflicts are lurking.

The SPD state chairwoman Franziska Giffey demonstrates that she can stage tension even before she is in office. On the day before her election in the House of Representatives, the designated governing mayor presented the SPD Senate team in a typical Berlin event location that still breathes the charm of industrialization.

The round of introductions lasted 75 minutes. Every single member of the Senate together with the associated state secretaries was presented in detail. Giffey hosted the event like the host on a good ol ‘Saturday night television show.

Giffey wants to maintain a presidential style

This setting could be a foretaste of how she wants to govern the Rotes Rathaus in the future. In contrast to the previous incumbent Michael Müller, who was also responsible for science as a senator, Giffey wants to “keep an eye on everything” from the Senate Chancellery, as she says.

Unlike Müller, who likes to approach his coalition partners in a more rustic way, Giffey clearly wants to moderate and maintain a presidential style. Even in the coalition negotiations, which were anything but easy, she gave the slogan that a new edition of Red-Green-Red must be about making things happen.

Left party made the SPD and the Greens tremble

But whether the three-party alliance is making progress in the capital and whether the red-green-red government engine will stutter less in the future does not depend on Giffey alone. The other two coalition partners will take care of that. The Left Party has just impressively shown that it too understands tension.

By the end of last week, the party had both the Social Democrats and the Greens trembling as to whether the coalition would even come about. In the end, the members paved the way for the alliance with their vote. The actual stress test between the SPD and the left will be on the Senate agenda in a year at the latest.

Giffey is strictly against expropriations

A commission, which has yet to be set up, should then recommend what will become of the successful referendum on the socialization of large real estate groups. Giffey is strictly against expropriations and, with the appointment of her party friend Andreas Geisel as Senator for Construction, once again documents that she wants to tackle the Berlin rent misery and the housing shortage together with the private real estate industry.

The left, on the other hand, has the word that the greed for profit in the housing market is finally being put to a halt with the many tenant activists in the capital. How this conflict can be defused has not yet been revealed by any of the coalition parties.

SPD prevailed in the subway

The SPD and the Greens are just as far apart when it comes to climate protection and the turnaround in traffic, even if Giffey and the designated Green Senator for Transport and Environment Bettina Jarasch persistently smile at the conflicting goals. In fact, at this point the red-green-red coalition agreement is more of a formula than a compromise.

So the SPD has prevailed with its desire for new underground lines. However, their construction will take decades and will not help the climate in the short term. In order to reduce CO2 emissions faster and more effectively, cars with internal combustion engines would have to be banned step by step from downtown Berlin and parking spaces would have to be reduced. Here Giffey and large parts of the Berlin SPD traditionally stand on the brakes.

Three women set the pace

The new red-green-red alliance has unresolved questions in its luggage, which the old coalition had already raised. Some party strategists see the fact that there are now mostly new heads in the Senate as an opportunity. On the other hand, it is becoming apparent that in the future three women will set the pace, who could hardly be more different.

In addition to Giffey, Jarasch will play a central role in the Senate as the green super-senator for the environment, transport, climate and consumer protection. The left has achieved a coup with the appointment of its former federal chairman Katja Kipping as Senator for Social Affairs.

No piercing

But Kipping’s personality is also an attempt to keep coalition critics in their own ranks happy. Jarasch, in turn, has to show consideration for her very left party friends in the Kreuzberg district. Jarasch and Kipping also stand for a completely different style of politics than the good-mood politician Giffey.

But the new coalition achieved something before it even took office, which in the notoriously talkative Berlin is tantamount to a small miracle. During the entire coalition negotiations there was no breach, and the names of the senators were not leaked until the end. Maybe that’s a foretaste of the new coalition in Berlin.