NEWS FROM BERLIN

VBB tickets expected to be 7.5% more expensive in 2025

Public transport tickets from the Berlin-Brandenburg Transport Association (VBB) will probably be around 7.5% more expensive in the new year, bringing a single journey in Berlin to almost four euros. The final decision on the price increase by the VBB Supervisory Board is still pending and expected in the coming weeks. When calculating the fares (the so-called VBB fare index), the development of the cost of living, electricity and fuel prices over the past 60 months is considered. Source: rbb

Warning strike at the rbb

The DJV and ver.di unions have called for a three-day warning strike at Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg (rbb). As a result, there will be restrictions in the programmes. So far, rbb and the trade unions have not been able to reach an agreement on how to proceed with a collective bargaining agreement for freelance employees that has already been negotiated and with the upcoming collective bargaining negotiations for permanent and temporary employees. The trade unions are calling for the collective agreement to protect long-term freelance employees to be signed. They also reject rbb’s demand for wage freezes for salaries and fees in the current round of collective bargaining. Source: rbb

Amazon Tower in Berlin: a city for corporations

The angular, mirrored glass façade looms coldly over the otherwise rather vibrant architecture around Warschauer Brücke in Friedrichshain. Edge East Side Tower is the name of the tower in which the major corporation Amazon has rented space – or Amazon Tower for short. An alliance of climate, urban and rental policy initiatives is fighting against the company’s move into Friedrichshain and recently called for a demonstration. There are many reasons to be against the corporation: the working conditions, for example, and the company’s carbon footprint. However, the most obvious one here in Berlin is the criticism of gentrification. Source: nd

NEWS FROM GERMANY

No recession, but little relief, for German economy

Germany, Europe’s long-time powerhouse, has been struggling badly in the last years. Yet last week there was some room for positivity. The country managed 0.2% growth in the third quarter of 2024, beating pessimistic expectations which had forecast a contraction. This means that, despite the drop in the second quarter, Germany avoids slipping into recession, typically defined as two successive quarters of contraction. However, in keeping with the grim mood that has hung over the country, this week’s data drop revealed that the economy shrank 0.3% between April and June, a revision downwards from the previously recorded 0.1% drop. Source: dw

Antisemitism cannot be fought in this way

For a good year now, the Ampel parliamentary groups and the CDU/CSU have been negotiating what a joint resolution against anti-Semitism could look like. Since the first drafts began to make the rounds, criticism of the plan has become ever louder. A group of Jewish and non-Jewish academics have recently formulated a counterproposal, focusing on positive measures to support Jewish life. In an open letter submitted to taz, more than 600 signatories from politics, culture and society have come out in favour of this letter. Among them, there are for instance the Green politician Daniel Cohn-Bendit, and the climate activist Luisa Neubauer. Source: taz

Scholz meets NATO chief Rutte in Berlin

In Mark Rutte’s first official visit to Germany since becoming head of the trans-Atlantic defence alliance, the new NATO chief praised the country’s efforts to boost defence spending in recent years. At a press conference after the meeting, Rutte said German defense spending was still too low, despite recent increases. Germany is now investing 2% of its gross domestic product in defense for the first time in three decades, but all Allies need to invest more, according to Rutte. Of particular security concern for the NATO countries is the recent addition of North Korean soldiers to Russian troops fighting in Ukraine, marking a new escalation of the conflict. Source: dw

German government going into crisis mode

Give up or rescue what can still be saved? This is the choice faced by the Ampel coalition government, which has been in office for almost three years. Its three parties have always been at loggerheads because many of their core policies are substantially different. Currently, several closed-door meetings are to culminate in a session of coalition representatives on November 6. Then, for the first time in weeks, the leaders of all three parties and their parliamentary groups will be sitting at the same table. There is considerable time pressure, as the 2025 budget is due to be passed in the Bundestag at the end of November. Source: dw

NEWS FROM BERLIN

Self-Determination Act: hundreds of applications already received

Last April, the Bundestag passed the new Self-Determination law that would make the process of changing your name and gender easier. Before the new law was passed, more than 1,200 applications were received by Berlin’s registry offices, according to a survey by the Germany Press Agency. The easing of restrictions will primarily benefit transgender, intersex and non-binary individuals who previously had to go through a series of complicated and costly hurdles. From November onwards, only a declaration will be sufficient. An applicant’s gender can be changed to female, male, diverse, or otherwise erased. Source: theberliner

Berlin-Plänterwald: hundreds of new flats built for students

The state-owned housing association Howoge has announced a new residential project in Berlin-Plänterwald. The “StudentHouse” is to be located near Treptower Park. There are 280 fully furnished one-bedroom flats available on Eichbuschallee. The rent with all side costs ranges from 530 euros to 550 euros for flats with a balcony, including furnishings, operating and heating costs as well as electricity and internet. Half of the flats are barrier-free. In addition to the flats, there are also communal areas with green spaces, playgrounds and multifunctional outdoor areas. The sustainable concept includes extensive green roofs and complete rainwater infiltration on the site. Source: msn

“Linksunten”, once again

In 2017, the online platform Indymedia “Linksunten” was shut down after being banned by the Federal Minister of the Interior Thomas de Maizière (CDU). However, the judiciary continues to act against alleged supporters of the site. A few days ago, Berlin blogger and publicist Detlef Georgia Schulze received a fine of 900 euros. The public prosecutor’s office accuses her of publishing an archive of Indymedia “Linksunten” under a separate domain “Tachanka” at the beginning of 2020. When asked by “nd” why Schulze is being made responsible for this content, when she was already listed as a supporter under the previous ban, Lisa Jani, head of the press office of the Berlin chamber courts, gave no comment. Source: nd-aktuell

NEWS FROM GERMANY

Tough class warfare

VW management wants to save more than four billion euros to overcome its corporate crisis. In addition to job cuts and wage reductions, three plants in Germany are to be closed according to the works council. On the other hand, the company paid millions in bonuses to its board members over the years despite numerous scandals. There are strategic mistakes, too, as IG Metall never tires of putting emphasis on, such as the focus on the high-priced SUV segment in the field of electromobility. A criticism that could be heard on the factory floors long before the current headlines. Source: nd-aktuell

Brandenburg SPD-BSW coalition gets closer

In Brandenburg, the SPD and the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) are heading towards government coalition negotiations. An exploratory paper drawn up by the parties was presented to the public on Monday morning and to the respective party executive committees in the evening. The Minister President of Brandenburg, Dietmar Woidke (SPD), considered an SPD-BSW government alliance could be the only way to form a stable government in Brandenburg without the AfD. If the SPD and BSW form a government they would reach the necessary majority in parliament – but by only two votes. Source: nd-aktuell

Metal and electrical industry start warning strike

IG Metall started its warning strike in the metal and electrical industry. Actions are planned throughout Germany – including at a VW plant. The union is demanding a seven per cent wage increase. Demonstrations were held overnight at the VW plant in Osnabrück, among others. 250 employees were on site, according to a spokesperson for IG Metall Osnabrück. The plant, which has around 2,500 employees and is threatened with closure, is not covered by the VW collective labour agreement, which is still subject to a so-called “peace obligation” (that is an agreement for no industrial action) until the end of November. Source: tagesschau

NEWS FROM BERLIN

CDU wants to put Berlin’s Left Party under surveillance

The CDU in Neukölln considers that parts of the Berlin Left Party should be monitored by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution due to purported Israel hate and antisemitism. The Left Party had already been monitored by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution for several years in the past. The current trigger was a report in the Tagesspiegel: the newspaper showed how closely the Neukölln left-wingers are interwoven with the pro-Palestinian movement. In addition, the district association openly sympathises with Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. Source: bz

Berlin’s cultural scene defends itself with actions against cost-cutting plans

Berlin’s cultural scene organised a day of action last Wednesday to warn of impending budget cuts and their dramatic consequences. Numerous institutions – including theatres, museums and libraries – expressed their protest with red and white fluttering tape, banners or interrupted performances under the motto #BerlinIstKultur. The Deutsche Theater, the Volksbühne, the Zentral- und Landesbibliothek Berlin (ZLB), the Berliner Ensemble, the Schaubühne, the Deutsches Technikmuseum and the Friedrichstadtpalast, among others, took part in the day of action, by cancelling performances or showing empty shelves outside public libraries. Source: rbb24

Finally online Anmeldung in Berlin

Anyone who has moved to Berlin is familiar with the struggle of getting an appointment at the Bürgeramt in time to meet the two-week deadline for the address registration. The newly introduced online process, however, is about to change that. Since last week, e-registration has been available. With more than 500,000 applications each year, registering a new apartment is one of the most frequently used administrative services offered by the German capital. The new online service is free of charge and only requires a user account and an online ID card. Source: theberliner

Cycle path dispute in Berlin escalates

Hundreds of residents in Berlin’s Kantstraße are threatened with losing their homes. The background to this is a long-running conflict over the pop-up cycle path, which was installed in 2020. Christoph Brzezinski (CDU), the district councillor for Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf, announced that the building inspectorate would begin delivering letters announcing a ban on use from 1 November. All residents from the third floor upwards will be affected. The reason: the current division of the road is obstructing the fire brigade. The parking lane between the cycle lane and the carriageway means that ladders cannot be set up safely in an emergency. Source: welt

NEWS FROM GERMANY

Boost in arms export licences to Israel

In the past eight weeks, the German government has authorised arms exports worth around 31 million euros for Israel. This is more than twice as much as in the first seven and a half months of the year. It is unclear whether the authorised goods include weapons of war. The Ministry does not provide any information on this, citing the confidentiality of decisions made by the Federal Security Council. The report does mention categories of goods including ammunition, bombs and warships. However, instead of licenses for arms deliveries, these may also be licenses for the delivery of spare parts. Source: msn

U-turn in German policy towards Turkey

Arms exports to Turkey have long been a taboo subject for the German government. But when Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) appeared before the press last Saturday together with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, he acted as if such concerns had never existed. “Turkey is a member of NATO, and that’s why we always make decisions that result in concrete deliveries,” he said at the Dolmabahçe Palace in Istanbul. The Turkish newspaper Yeni Şafak reported that a team from the consortium that manufactures the Typhoon Eurofighter arrived in Turkey for around three weeks of technical talks. Source: faz

Germany inaugurates new NATO HQ on the Baltic Sea

Germany launched a new multinational naval tactical headquarters in Rostock. From there, the Command Task Force (CTF) Baltic headquarters will coordinate naval activities for all NATO allies on the Baltic Sea. There is an existing command staff at the Rostock Naval Command, which already works together with various countries but will in the future perform additional tasks for NATO according to the German Ministry of Defense, Boris Pistorius (SPD). The facility’s establishment underlines the importance of the Baltic Sea for NATO after relations with Russia worsened following the Ukraine war. Source: dw

At the centre of the shitstorm

A week ago, the Israeli army bombed a tent city on the grounds of a hospital in the centre of Gaza. Images of patients burning to death in their beds went around the world. The US organisation Jewish Voice for Peace shared a picture of this horrific scene on social media with the polemical comment: “This is Zionism.” SPD politician Aydan Özoğuz subsequently shared this post on Instagram. Since then, she has been at the centre of a storm of outrage that refuses to die down, despite calls for her resignation from the CDU/CSU, the FDP and the Bild newspaper. Source: taz

NEWS FROM BERLIN

Berlin’s state-owned companies raise rents for more than 90,000 flats

Tens of thousands of tenants in Berlin are facing rising housing costs at the turn of the year. The state-owned housing associations want to increase the rent on a total of more than 90,000 flats. This was announced by the State Secretary for Housing, Stephan Machulik (SPD) who said that rents will rise for 20,000 Degewo flats, 27,900 Howoge flats, 12,500 Gesobau flats and 10,200 WBM flats. Machulik explained it is not yet clear exactly how many tenants will be affected by the increase. On average, rents are set to increase by between 7.9 and 9%. Source: tagesspiegel

Indefinite daycare strike in Berlin remains banned

A major defeat for ver.di at the state labour court: the indefinite strike planned by trade unions in Berlin for better working conditions for employees at daycare centres remains unlawful. This was decided by the Berlin-Brandenburg Regional Labour Court, confirming a decision by the lower court. The court considered that an indefinite strike would be a violation of the applicable so-called peace obligation once negotiations with the Tarifgemeinschaft deutscher Länder (TdL) in December 2023 had already discussed regulations to relieve the burden on nursery teachers. The union is conducting joint collective bargaining for all federal states except Hesse. Source: rbb

NEWS FROM GERMANY

Scholz announces further arms exports to Israel

According to the Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD), Germany will go on supplying Israel with weapons. The announcement was made during the Bundestag debate on the occasion of the anniversary of the attack on Israel by Islamist Hamas on 7 October 2023. Beforehand, representatives of the CDU/CSU parties had accused the traffic-light coalition (SPD – FDP – Greens) of failing to support Israel, explicitly referring to arms deliveries. Party leader Friedrich Merz (CDU) also said that export licences, for example for ammunition and even the delivery of spare parts for tanks, had been refused for weeks. Source: deutschlandfunk

Shouts of ‘Foreigners out!’ at a major techno event in Würzburg

Once again, the Gigi D’Agostino classic ‘L’amour tojours’ was misused for racist slogans – this time at the ‘Power of Techno’ event at the Posthalle in Würzburg, where DJ Peacock was playing. The song had been played out for just 20 seconds from the speakers, but it was enough time for some people to start screaming ‘Foreigners out!’. According to the organisers of ‘Power of Techno’, the incident only came to their attention afterwards. ‘If we had known, we would have taken immediate action and expelled the people from the hall,’ the organisers told the Main Post. Source: fazemag

Police secretly change press release to disperse protest

The police defended their actions against the Swedish activist Greta Thunberg attending a pro-Palestinian protest camp in Dortmund University. Police forces had banned and dispersed the camp on last Tuesday evening shortly before Thunberg’s planned visit. Dortmund police chief Gregor Lange emphasised that there had been a concrete danger of anti-Semitic crimes. Thunberg was described as a ‘person prepared to use violence’ in an initial police statement on her deployment. The police subsequently described this as an ‘internal error’. Greta Thunberg then accused the German authorities of threatening activists and silencing them. ‘We will not be silenced,’ she concluded. Source: n-tv

‘I don’t want to be a fig leaf’

In an interview, Green member of the Bundestag for Kreuzberg Canan Bayram said she is not running for again. She writes in taz that the party is no longer as well connected as it used to be, specifically citing the days of Hans-Christian Ströbele, a green party founder. Bayram also states she can no longer ‘promise people with a migration background that they can come with their problems and find a non-discriminatory space’. What she points out as particularly problematic is that ‘the Greens once were orientated towards evidence-based substantive solutions in policy areas’, and now it seems to her ‘we are much more involved in populist discourse instead of discussing actual solutions’. Source: taz

Ex-Stasi officer sentenced to ten years in prison

A former Stasi officer, now 80 years old, is accused of shooting a man at a GDR border crossing half a century ago. The Berlin district court has now sentenced him to ten years in prison for murder. This is the first murder conviction against a former Stasi employee. The public prosecutor’s office had previously demanded twelve years in prison. The Brandenburg Commissioner for Dealing with the Consequences of the Communist Dictatorship, Maria Nooke, welcomed the judgement. The trial demonstrates the importance of the legal and social reappraisal of GDR injustice right up to the present day. Source: rbb

Germany makes a move to protect top court against the far right

Many authoritarian governments are trying to curb the clout of their countries’ supreme courts. As far-right populists gain ground in Germany, the government is also working to protect this “bastion of democracy”. A draft law drawn up by the current coalition German government, together with the opposition conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), was debated in the German parliament this week, aimed at enshrining certain features of the Constitutional Court in the German constitution, the Basic Law, making them harder to change. Only the AfD voiced any opposition to the proposal. Source: dw

NEWS FROM BERLIN

Demo in Kreuzberg ends ahead of time

Hundreds of police officers accompanied demonstrations in Berlin on Sunday. A pro-Palestinian demonstration ended prematurely in the evening. The march, with around 3,500 participants, started in the afternoon at Kottbusser Tor and was originally supposed to head to Sonnenallee. However, the police refused access to the street due to concerns about rioting. The rally was ended at 6.18 pm because of“unruliness,” according to the police. Several people were arrested in an atmosphere described as “emotional.” In Mitte, many came together to grieve for the victims of 7 October: around 500 people demanded the release of the Israeli hostages. The demonstration via Unter den Linden ended in the afternoon without incident. Source: rbb24

Greta Thunberg at October 7 demonstration

A demo on Monday also ended as feared: scuffles with the police, arrests, bottles thrown and people injured. Around 400 people gathered at Südstern in Berlin on the evening of October 7 to officially demonstrate in “Solidarity with Palestine.” The demonstration, which took place on the first anniversary of the Hamas massacres in Israel, was advertised under the slogan “Glory to the resistance.” The most prominent participant was climate movement icon Greta Thunberg. The demonstration was called by the Trotskyist group Arbeiterinnenmacht as well as the Communist Organisation, the Alliance of Internationalist Feminists, Palestine Speaks, and Jewish Voices for a Just Peace in the Middle East, among others. Source: taz

Prosecution in Berlin seeks 12 years in Stasi murder trial

An 80-year-old from Leipzig who worked for East Germany’s secret police, Stasi, is accused of murdering a Polish man, Czesław Kukuczka, who was trying to flee west in 1974. Prosecutors called for a 12-year sentence in closing arguments. At the Polish Embassy in East Berlin, Kukuczka had threatened to be carrying a bomb, which it later transpired was a bluff. He was trying to flee to join relatives in the US. The trial only became possible with the emergence of new evidence. Prosecutors say information found by historians in the Stasi archives in 2016 first linked the defendant to the killing. A verdict is expected on October 14. Source: dw

NEWS FROM GERMANY

Federal government anticipates recession in Germany

The German government has revised its economic forecast downwards and now expects 2024 to be the second year of recession in a row. The Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs Robert Habeck (Greens) now assumes that the economy will shrink by 0.2% this year, as reported by the Süddeutsche Zeitung. Leading research institutes have already lowered their forecast for the German economy this year. In a recently published autumn report for the government, economists assume that GDP will fall by 0.1% in 2024, marking the second consecutive year of contraction. The official announcement of the current estimate is planned for next Wednesday. Source: tagesschau

“Key figure” in Cologne explosions arrested

Investigators believe that an arrested 22-year-old is a “key figure” in a suspected drug deal that was behind the series of explosions that have rocked Cologne and other places in recent months. The suspect was picked up at the Roissy Airport in Paris. The public prosecutor’s office in Cologne has initiated extradition proceedings and is in close contact with the French judicial authorities. The theft of a large quantity of cannabis from a warehouse in Hürth is believed to have triggered a spiral of violence in Cologne and several other places. Source: dw

FDP wants hardship for migrants

The FDP wants to push through a tougher course on migration policy. According to information from the German Press Agency, the parliamentary group’s executive committee decided on a nine-point paper. “There is now an opportunity for tangible changes in migration policy,” says the FDP paper. The nine-point paper specifically calls for an examination of “safe countries of origin,” which means that asylum applications from people from such countries can be rejected more easily than others. Coalition partner SPD reacted sceptically. The ongoing talks on the so-called security package must wait, said deputy parliamentary group leader Dirk Wiese to Die Welt. Source: taz