Berlin is fragrant. Franziska Giffey didn’t say that on Thursday, but the sentence comes pretty close to her message. In her government statement, the Governing Mayor from the SPD is very supportive of the state, saying that the breakdown in the election in the capital “did great damage”, “mistakes happened that shouldn’t have happened”, and “clichés about Berlin” were confirmed. However, the responsibility for the chaos election rests on many shoulders, not only on the Senate, but also on the districts. That means: I won’t give up my former Senator for the Interior, Andreas Geisel, who was responsible for overseeing election preparation at the time.
Otherwise, Giffey’s speech is a summary of the actual or supposed successes of her red-green-red coalition, from the admission of the Ukraine refugees, who welcomed Berlin as a “city of open hearts”, to the pioneering role in local public transport, fought for through the 29-euro ticket, up to the re-employment of the teachers after no less than 18 years and the considerable number of tourists again, where Berlin competes with Lisbon, Barcelona and New York, but leaves London and Paris behind. “We want to show that this state government has the situation under control,” says Giffey and affirms that her post as head of the capital is still “the best job you can imagine”.