2024-04-12 23:25:11
A request reveals how often ministers and state secretaries met with real estate lobbyists in 2023. The Left sharply criticizes the number of meetings.
Federal government ministers and state secretaries met with lobbyists from the real estate industry around 70 times last year. This emerges from an answer from the Federal Ministry of Construction to a written question from left-wing MP Caren Lay about the 2023 lobby meeting, which is available exclusively to t-online.
The “Federal Association of German Housing and Real Estate Companies” (GdW) was the most frequently involved with 35 discussions, followed by the “Central Real Estate Committee” (ZIA) with 25 discussions. The association of real estate owners “Haus und Grund” presented itself to the ministries 18 times. The housing company Vonovia was invited to discussions eleven times – seven times to personal discussions at the highest level with Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens).
Compared to meetings with lobbyists from the real estate industry, there were fewer discussions with associations that explicitly and primarily represent the interests of tenants. The German Tenants’ Association, as the central tenant lobby organization, was only heard ten times. Ministers and state secretaries spoke to representatives of the Federal Association of Consumer Organizations (vzbv), which defines its tasks more broadly, 29 times – and there were personal discussions with Habeck four times.
Left: “Shale light” on legislative initiatives
Housing construction and rental expert Lay criticizes that the large number of discussions between the federal government and the real estate lobby and in particular the meetings with Vonovia would shed a “dry light” on the traffic light’s legislative initiatives.
“The fact that, according to the Building Energy Act (GEG) passed in 2023, tenants now have to pay the costs for energy-related modernization is probably no coincidence against this background,” said the left-wing politician t-online.
The traffic light government has so far been a “total failure” in terms of rent and housing policy, and improvements for tenants are “mouldering in the cabinet’s desk drawers,” said Lay. “Instead of courting financial and real estate capital, the federal government must finally do more to relieve the burden on tenants.”