News from Berlin
New housing plan for Berlin’s state-owned companies
Berlin’s state-owned housing companies will likely miss their new construction target again this year: in 2025, Senator for Construction Christian Gaebler (SPD) held out the prospect of 7,000 new state-owned apartments for 2026. However, he mentioned on 5 June that “6,000 to 6,500 new apartments are slated for completion,” observing still that “of course, construction itself can face delays here and there, meaning a project might suddenly finish in January instead of December.” The current coalition then presented a plan, “Roadmap 2.0,” committing itself to offering more housing units. Niklas Schenker (Die Linke) had already delivered the counterargument in the House of Representatives on 4 June, doubting that such a policy alone would suffice. Source: nd.
Administrative court dismisses DRK clinics’ lawsuit regarding hospital financing
The Berlin administrative court dismissed the lawsuit regarding hospital financing on 8 June. The court justified its ruling that the DRK clinics could have lodged an objection at an earlier point in time. This means that for the time being the state of Berlin is allowed to pay the state-owned Vivantes Group billions in compensation payments. Private and non-profit hospitals, on the other hand, are left empty-handed. The DRK Clinic Köpenick had sued in vain on behalf of an alliance of almost 30 hospitals. An appeal is possible against the verdict. Source: rbb24.
News from Germany
The neo-Nazi party almost won
In Aue-Bad Schlema, CDU candidate Marcus Hoffmann won the mayoral election on 7 June by quite a thin margin—around 500 votes. His rival, Stefan Hartung, known as a leading member of the neo-Nazi party Freie Sachsen (Free Saxons), garnered 47.3% of the vote. While this is largely due to his personal appeal, it also reflects the political trends in the region. Also on 7 June, during the election for district administrator in the Saalekreis district of Saxony-Anhalt, Uwe Arendt—a police officer from Merseburg and an AfD candidate—secured 43% of the vote in the first round. A CDU candidate, Sven Czekalla, finished second with 36.6%. Source: taz.
Politicians as targets
Insults, threats, physical assaults—politicians are coming under attack with increasing frequency. A closer look at the statistics (193 reported cases) reveals that many of the offenses involved property damage, such as graffiti on building facades. Verbal abuse—technically classified as “offenses involving speech”—was particularly common, counting for a quarter of the total. Political scientist Oliver Lembcke of Ruhr University Bochum views this as a consequence of an increasingly polarized society. The political scientist identifies social media as a key factor accelerating this trend. “Verbal boundaries have already been pushed to the max; what comes after the insult?” Source: dw.
40 years of the environment ministry
In 1986, following the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, the Environment Ministry was established. Then-Chancellor Helmut Kohl (CDU) decided Germany needed a dedicated ministry to handle the protection of nature, as well as the management of nuclear power. The current minister Carsten Schneider (SPD) notes that “environmental policy requires an alert civil society. It needs a scientific community that conducts independent research.” He also acknowledges that environmental policy is an arduous undertaking; to this day, it must contend with the prejudice that it hinders economic dynamism. “Germany has experienced economic growth while becoming more sustainable,” he adds. However, Lena Partzsch (Freie Universität Berlin) identifies another challenge: emissions from the military sector continue to rise. Source: dw.
Over a million job vacancies
Although unemployment in Germany has been rising for years, more than a million jobs remained unfilled nationwide in the first quarter of 2026, according to the latest job vacancy survey by the Institute for Employment Research (IAB) in Nuremberg. However, 1.15 million, the number of open positions in that first quarter of 2026, was actually 105,800 lower than the figure for the last quarter of 2025. It is estimated there are currently 264 unemployed people for every open position—13 more than a year ago. “Demand for labor continues to stagnate at a low level in the first quarter of 2026,” added IAB researcher Alexander Kubis. Source: t-online.
War comes to the classroom
The Bundeswehr is actively dispatching youth officers to schools: there were over 2,000 such visits in the first quarter of 2026 alone. On 8 June, the state of Berlin formalized a practice that has long been in place by signing a cooperation agreement with the Bundeswehr. Education Senator Katharina Günther-Wünsch (CDU) described the collaboration between Berlin schools and the Bundeswehr to date as “fairly loose,” though “very active.” Berlin is the eleventh federal state to sign such a contract; Brandenburg is expected to follow suit soon. The document states that the youth officers do not engage in recruitment, addressing instead, “fundamental questions of peace and security policy.” Source: jw.
