Linke: program for the 2026 Berlin state election

The Left wants to allow no further privatization and to gradually remunicipalize or socialize areas such as housing, public transit, care work, and health. Hospitals are to remain municipal. The party rejects cuts to social spending.

The Left wants to stop selling public companies. Important services should belong to the city again. These include housing, public transit, and health. Hospitals should stay with the city. The Left does not want to cut social services.

The Left wants to protect small shops and neighborhood facilities and proposes that no new shopping malls be approved. In its view there are already too many, and they push out small businesses. The construction of more hotels is also to be steered through a dedicated plan.

The Left wants to protect small shops in the neighborhoods. No new big shopping malls should be allowed. The party says there are already too many. They push out the small shops. There should also be a plan with rules for new hotels.

The Left wants to align Berlin's business subsidies with strategic goals and tie them strictly to conditions such as collective bargaining coverage, ecological sustainability, and employment. Smaller companies, start-ups, migrant-run businesses, and women in business are to receive targeted support.

Berlin gives companies subsidy money. The Left wants strict conditions for it. Companies should pay union-agreed wages and work in a green way. Small companies should get subsidies more easily. Founders and businesses run by immigrants should also get help.

The Left wants to make public procurement simpler and more digital so that smaller companies also get a chance. Approved-supplier lists and certificates are to replace repeated paperwork. At the same time, collective agreements, public-benefit orientation, open source, and human rights and environmental standards are to count in purchasing.

The state awards contracts to companies. The Left wants to make this easier. Companies with union pay agreements go on a list. Then they do not have to fill out every form each time. Small Berlin companies should get help. Human rights and the environment should count when the state buys things.

The Left wants to create new state-owned and cooperative Gewerbehöfe (shared commercial buildings) to offer small businesses affordable space. The state-owned company WISTA is to receive more capital for this, and Berlin's land fund is to be able to buy more property.

Small businesses can hardly find affordable space in Berlin. The Left wants to build new shared commercial buildings. These are buildings with rooms for many businesses. The state of Berlin should own such buildings itself. Berlin should also buy more land.

The Left wants to use the Bundesrat to achieve a permanent legal cap on commercial rents, including a multi-year rent freeze. A ban on vacancy is also to apply to commercial properties. The platform justifies this with the displacement of small shops and social facilities.

Rents for shops and businesses are rising fast in Berlin. Many small shops and daycare centers have to close because of this. The Left wants a law against high commercial rents. Rents should not be allowed to rise for several years. Commercial space must not stand empty.

The Left wants to have the state examine whether it can take over vacant department stores and shopping centers and turn them into neighborhood hubs with affordable shops. Small retailers are to get help with online business, and tradespeople are to get better parking and delivery access.

Many department stores and shops stand empty. The Left wants to check whether Berlin can take over such buildings. Low-cost shops, libraries, and daycare centers should go there. Small shops should get help selling online. Tradespeople and care services should be able to park more easily.

The Left wants to raise industry's share of Berlin's economic output and make the region a pioneer of carbon-neutral production. A state-owned industrial holding company is to take stakes in important companies in crisis. Existing networks and the Masterplan Industriestadt (industrial city master plan) are to continue with better funding.

The Left wants to strengthen industry in Berlin. Factories should produce in a climate-friendly way. The state of Berlin should set up its own holding company. It buys shares in important companies in trouble. That way, jobs should stay in Berlin. Universities and companies should work together more closely.

The Left wants more local production and wants outsourced manufacturing brought back. Public contracts and investment subsidies should, as far as possible, be tied to commitments to keep sites open, to transformation plans, and to training agreements.

The Left wants more goods to be made in the region. Companies should bring production back from abroad. Anyone who gets contracts or money from the state should make promises. For example: the plant stays in Berlin and the jobs stay safe.

The Left wants to make tourism more compatible with city life and spread visitors more evenly across Berlin. Messe Berlin, the trade fair company, should remain publicly owned, keep its own fair formats, and develop new ones.

Many tourists come to Berlin. That brings money, but also noise and problems in neighborhoods. The Left wants to spread visitors better across the city. The trade fair should still belong to the state of Berlin. The Left does not want to sell it.

The Left rejects additional arms production and arms research in Berlin and wants to convert existing arms manufacturers to civilian production. In the platform's view, rearmament increases the risk of war and offers no sustainable economic prospects.

The Left wants no new weapons factories in Berlin. Civilian plants should not start making weapons. Existing arms makers should switch to civilian products. This should keep the jobs safe for the long term. The Left says: more weapons make war more likely.

The Left wants to strengthen alternative forms of business such as cooperatives, collectively run firms, and social enterprises. Permanent contact points, more advisory services, a state strategy, and stronger alternative economic research at universities are meant to contribute to this.

Some businesses belong to the people who work there. Others mainly want to benefit society. The Left wants to support such businesses. There should be permanent contact points and more advice. Research on other ways of doing business should also grow.

The Left wants to keep the rule that public contracts go only to companies paying collectively agreed wages, and it opposes raising the contract-value thresholds, which it says would hollow out that rule. At the same time, the procurement process is to become simpler and digital, and compliance is to be checked more closely.

Berlin gives many contracts to companies. These companies must pay union-scale wages. The Left wants to keep this rule. The process should become simpler and digital. There should also be more checks.

The Left wants to set up public neighborhood canteens across the city offering healthy meals starting at 3 euros. They are also meant to be meeting places for neighbors and to counter poverty and loneliness.

The Left wants to open canteens in the neighborhoods. They offer healthy meals from 3 euros. Every day at least one meal is made only from plants. Neighbors can meet there.

Under the guiding idea of a "caring city," the Left wants to launch pilot projects for care centers that bring social services, culture and health care together close to where people live. Vacant shopping centers in particular would be taken into public ownership for this purpose. New housing would always be planned together with social and green infrastructure.

The Left wants to create care centers in neighborhoods. People can meet there without buying anything. There is help, culture and cheap food. Empty shopping centers should belong to the city for this. Neighbors should help decide.

The Left wants a binding agreement with social service providers and welfare associations that secures funding for social services over the long term. For-profit providers in social services are to be pushed back, and the rules for public grants simplified.

Social service providers are groups that offer counseling or help, for example. The Left wants to give them steady and secure funding. Their workers should be paid according to union wage agreements. There should be less red tape. Companies that want to profit from social services should become fewer.

The Left wants to reverse the decline in collective bargaining coverage in Berlin. It plans to use the Bundesrat to abolish employer associations that operate without collective agreements and to require craft guilds to negotiate such agreements. According to the platform, economic change must not come at workers' expense.

A collective agreement sets pay and hours for many workplaces. In Berlin, fewer and fewer people work under one. The Left wants to change that. Employer groups without such agreements should no longer exist. Craft guilds should have to negotiate pay agreements.

The Left wants the shift to a climate-friendly economy not to come at the expense of workers and jobs. More companies should be able to train their staff, supported by in-house training guides (Qualifikationslots*innen).

The economy should become climate-friendly. The Left wants no one to lose their job because of this. Workers should be able to learn new skills. Guides inside the companies should help. These guides are co-workers who organize training.

The Left wants to work with unions to achieve better working conditions in the IT sector, at startups, and in click and gig work. The ban on Sunday opening in retail should stay in place, and there should be fewer Sundays on which stores may open.

Many people work through apps and online platforms. Often they have no social protection. The Left wants to change this together with the unions. Stores should stay closed on Sundays. There should be fewer special Sundays when stores may open.

The Left wants every company in which the state of Berlin holds a stake to pay according to collective agreements, with subsidiaries reaching the pay level of their parent companies. Outsourced service subsidiaries should return to the parent companies; the party also aims for a shorter workweek without loss of pay.

The state of Berlin owns many companies. The Left wants everyone there to be paid under a union contract. Subsidiaries should pay as well as the main company. Outsourced subsidiaries should become part of the main company again. People should work fewer hours and earn the same.

The Left wants employees of independent nonprofit providers (Freie Träger) to be no worse off than state employees. The state should fully reimburse wages modeled on the TV-L, the public-sector pay agreement of the states, and providers should in future be required to pay union-scale wages.

Independent providers are, for example, associations that do social work. The Left wants their staff to earn as much as state employees. The state should pay the full union-scale wages. Providers would then have to pay those wages. Normal labor rights should also apply in church-run facilities.

The Left wants to pay the Hauptstadtzulage (capital-city pay supplement) to employees of universities, nonprofit service providers, and indirect state bodies as well. The platform points to Berlin's rising cost of living and views the current rule as putting these groups at a disadvantage.

The capital-city allowance is extra pay. Right now, public service workers get it. The Left wants more people to get it. This includes workers at universities and at nonprofit service providers. The party says life in Berlin has become expensive.

The Left wants to create at least one more public holiday in Berlin and to make up for holidays that fall on a Sunday by giving the following Monday off. It opposes more Sunday work, which it says burdens families, workers in insecure jobs, and people doing care work.

Berlin has ten public holidays a year. That is fewer than any other German state. The Left wants at least one more holiday. If a holiday falls on a Sunday, Monday should be a day off. Fewer stores should open on Sundays.

The Left wants to give Berlin's workplace safety agency (LAGetSi) more staff so that businesses are inspected more effectively. In addition, prosecutors are to pursue obstruction of works councils more consistently, and every district is to get a commissioner for good work.

A Berlin agency checks workplace safety in businesses. The Left wants more staff for this agency. Then it can check more businesses. Employers who block works councils should be punished. Every district should get a contact person for good work.

The Left wants to use business and transformation subsidies to push companies to sign training agreements. The platform cites the changing economy, which it says demands new skills, and the need to secure skilled workers.

Work in many companies is changing a lot. Workers need new skills because of this. The Left wants more training alongside the job. Companies should make firm agreements on this. The state should use subsidy money to get there.

The Left wants to advance industry-specific minimum fees and model contracts for solo self-employed workers in order to push back insecure work and bogus self-employment. Self-employed women in need would receive a maternity benefit from a state program around childbirth, because they have no entitlement to maternity protection.

Many people in Berlin work alone as self-employed. The Left wants minimum fees for them. That is a lower limit for pay. The state itself should pay fair fees. Self-employed mothers in need should get money around the time of birth.

The Left is pushing for the EU directive on platform work to be transposed thoroughly into federal law. Delivery services would have to employ their couriers directly, and platforms would be liable as general contractors. The platform links platform work to bogus self-employment, disreputable subcontractors, and management by algorithm.

Many people work for apps like Uber or Lieferando. The Left sees poor working conditions there. Delivery services should have to hire their couriers themselves. Platforms should also be liable for their subcontractors. Berlin should carry out more checks.

The Left wants to better protect workers in Berlin from heat, arguing that heat-related sick days have risen sharply. It also wants the state to run its own checks on whether employers document working conditions in writing and to fine violations.

The Left wants to protect people from heat at work. State employees should get paid breaks to cool down. Employers must write down the working conditions. Berlin should check this itself. Employers who break the rule should pay a fine.

The Left wants Berlin's state minimum wage and the minimum wage for public contracts to be equal and high enough to prevent poverty, including in old age. Both would be tied to the entry level of the public-sector pay agreement for the states. Through the Bundesrat, the minimum wage should also apply in sheltered workshops for people with disabilities.

Berlin has its own minimum wage. There is also a minimum wage for public contracts. The Left wants both to be the same. They should rise with public-sector pay. People in workshops for disabled people should also get the minimum wage.

The Left wants Berlin to use its powers as a state so that more workers are paid under collective agreements. The program names four levers, from public procurement to business subsidies. It also wants to examine, together with the unions, whether Berlin should set up a chamber of labor.

The Left wants more people in Berlin to be paid under union contracts. A union contract is a pay deal between unions and employers. Whoever gets contracts or money from the state should pay these wages. The Left also wants to look into a chamber of labor. That is a body that speaks for all workers.

The Left wants to require employers to tell their employees about their right to Bildungszeit (paid educational leave). According to the program, few people use this leave because they do not know about it or fear disadvantages at work.

Workers can take paid time off for training. This is called educational leave. Many people do not know this. The Left wants employers to tell their workers about it. If they do not, the right stays valid the next year.

The Left wants to start a new publicly funded employment program for the long-term unemployed. It is meant to offer socially useful work at collectively agreed wages, after Berlin's Solidarisches Grundeinkommen (solidarity basic income) job program ended without a replacement, according to the program.

The Left wants a new program for people without work. The state should offer them useful jobs. The jobs should pay union-level wages. Nobody should be forced. The goal is a lasting job.

The Left calls for a binding state program against loneliness that reaches people before isolation becomes chronic. It also wants neighborhood canteens as local places for affordable meals and social contact. The program sees loneliness as often resulting from poverty, overload and displacement.

Many people in Berlin are lonely. The Left wants a fixed state program against this. Trained workers should reach out to lonely people. There should also be neighborhood canteens. People can eat there cheaply and meet others.

The Left wants to set up a central phone line for social hardship that refers people to the right services. It argues that Berlin's support network is fragmented and many people cannot find the service they need. Street outreach work and the welfare offices are also to be expanded.

Berlin has many support services. But many people do not find the right one. The Left wants one central phone number for help. Welfare offices should get more staff. Public offices should also write in plain language.

The Left wants to record and fight poverty in Berlin comprehensively, with a focus on children and older people. Free lunches at elementary schools and the free student transit pass are to stay. People who do not claim benefits they are entitled to should be informed about their rights.

Many children and old people in Berlin are poor. The Left wants to keep free lunch at elementary schools. The free transit pass for students should also stay. Many people do not claim the support they could get. The Left wants to tell them about their rights.

At the federal level, the Left is pushing for an individual minimum income without sanctions of about 1,400 euros including housing costs. It rejects the federal government's new basic income support, arguing that it pushes people out of apartments deemed too expensive and raises pressure on job seekers. In Berlin it wants to use the state's legal leeway for benefit recipients.

The Left wants to replace basic income support. Every person in need should get about 1,400 euros a month. Rent is included in that. There should be no cuts as punishment. In Berlin, the Left wants to give people on benefits better support.

The Left wants job centers to have more staff per benefit recipient. The job centers' digital services should be accessible to everyone. Counseling on the Bildungs- und Teilhabepaket (education and participation package for children) is to be made permanent and expanded.

The Left wants more staff in job centers. That way people get better help there. The job centers' websites should work for everyone. Children should get money for school and leisure more easily. There should be more advice for that.

The Left wants the caps on rent and heating costs that authorities cover for benefit recipients brought in line with actual rents. No one should have to pay part of the rent out of their basic living allowance. Exceptions for homeless people are to be used more often.

Offices pay the rent for people on benefits. There are upper limits for that. The Left thinks these limits are too low. They should match real rents in Berlin. Then people do not have to cut back on food.

The Left wants every shelter where authorities place homeless people to be under contract and meet fixed quality standards. Additional specialized shelters are to be created for families with children and other especially vulnerable groups.

Authorities place people without a home in shelters. The Left wants fixed rules for these shelters. There should be enough space, cleanliness and advice. Families with children should get their own shelters.

The Left wants more shelters that are open around the clock all year and wants to add counseling to the winter cold-weather aid program. People living on the street are to have safe places to retreat to. Public spaces should not be built in ways that keep homeless people away.

The Left wants more places to sleep for people without shelter. These places should be open day and night. In winter there should also be advice there. There should be help in summer too. Park benches should not stop people from sleeping.

The Left wants to tie public contracts more closely to the employment of people with disabilities and award more of them to inclusive businesses. Sheltered workshops should do more to place people in regular jobs, and at the federal level the party pushes for the minimum wage in workshops.

The Left wants more jobs for people with disabilities. Berlin gives contracts to companies. Companies that hire people with disabilities should get an advantage. Sheltered workshops should pay the minimum wage. Workshops should help people find regular jobs.

The Left wants to create a Berlin Altenhilfestrukturgesetz (elder care structure law) that sets binding rules for services for older people in every district. The aim is to ease the effects of old-age poverty and make living conditions more equal across districts.

The Left wants a new law for older people in Berlin. It should secure meeting places and advice in every district. Older people with little money should be able to live better. At the federal level the party calls for higher pensions.

The Left wants to give outreach counseling for older people more funding and more trained staff. The transition into retirement is also to be better supported. In the long run, counseling is to be bundled in one place and delivered more often in people's homes.

The Left wants better advice for older people. Advisers should visit people at home more often. There should be more money and more staff for this. People should also get help when they start retirement.

The Left wants to fight child and family poverty and make public services for children and young people free across the board. It intends to push for a basic child benefit through the Bundesrat. According to the platform, nearly a third of Berlin's minors depend on state support.

Many children in Berlin live in poverty. The Left wants to change that. Public services for children should cost nothing. For example, swimming pools should be free for children. The Left also wants a basic child benefit for all of Germany. That is a fixed payment for every child.

The Left wants to create a fund from which organizations carrying out public tasks can pay for better working conditions. The platform's reasoning is that agreements such as collective contracts to reduce workloads put a financial strain on these organizations.

Some organizations do tasks for the city. Better working conditions cost them a lot of money. The Left wants to set up a fund for this. A fund is a pot of money. The organizations get money back from it.

The Left wants to pay public-sector employees better and prevent old-age poverty in the lower pay grades. Differences in pay and equipment between the central administration and the boroughs would be eliminated so that the boroughs can fill their positions.

The Left wants to pay city employees better. No one should be poor in old age. Borough jobs often pay less than Senate jobs. The party wants to change that.

The Left wants to raise the state of Berlin's revenue and redistribute more from top to bottom. It plans a tax on luxury villas, closer tax audits of millionaires, and an end to tax advantages for the top five percent of earners.

The Left wants Berlin to take in more money. There would be a new tax on very expensive villas. The tax office would check millionaires more closely. Tax breaks for the richest would end.

The Left wants to balance Berlin's state budget in the medium term without lowering total spending. To do so, it plans to tap more revenue, slow spending growth and make full use of borrowing options. Social infrastructure and investment take priority; the party rejects prestige projects such as an Olympic bid.

Berlin spends more money than it takes in. The Left wants to change that within a few years. It does not want to cut social services to do so. Berlin should take in more money and use more loans. The Left does not want costly big projects like the Olympics.

The Left wants to abolish the debt brake (Schuldenbremse) entirely because, in the party's view, it blocks investment. As long as it applies, state-owned companies are to invest more and receive loans from the state for that purpose.

The debt brake limits how much debt the government may take on. The Left wants to get rid of it completely. Berlin should invest more in bridges, daycare centers, schools and hospitals. Companies owned by the state should get loans for this.

The Left wants to coordinate investment from the state budget, the federal special fund and Berlin's state-owned companies, and to set up a state agency for that purpose. The money is to go mainly to climate protection, mobility and social infrastructure. State-owned companies are to be strengthened and protected from being sold.

Berlin should spend more on climate protection, transport and social services. A new state agency should plan this spending. The districts should get more of the federal money. The city's own companies should not be sold. Their prices should stay affordable for people.

The Left wants to raise Berlin's real estate transfer tax from 6.0 to 8.0 percent, or at least to 6.5 percent as in Brandenburg. At the federal level it wants states to be allowed to set graduated rates and wants avoidance through share deals to end.

People who buy land in Berlin pay a tax. The Left wants to raise this tax. It should go from 6 to 8 percent. Social housing and ordinary homes that owners live in could be exempt. For that, a federal law has to change.

The Left wants to examine raising the local business tax to Potsdam's multiplier of 470 and to make buyers and owners of luxury properties worth 4 million euros or more contribute more. It is also considering a Grundsteuer C (a property tax on undeveloped building land) and higher second-home tax and parking fees.

The Left wants more revenue for Berlin. It will look at a higher tax for businesses. Small businesses should not be hit too hard. People with a villa worth 4 million euros or more should pay more. Parking and second homes could also cost more.

The Left wants to give tax offices more staff and better technology so they can stop tax flight and tax avoidance by large companies and wealthy individuals. Each year, 100 additional tax auditors are to start training.

Tax offices should get more staff and better technology. Each year, 100 more people should start training as tax auditors. Tax auditors check whether companies and rich people pay their taxes. The training should become more attractive, for example with cheap apartments.

The Left wants to push at the federal level for the return of the wealth tax and for a reform of the shared taxes. If the federal government does not act, it wants to examine and advance having the states introduce the tax themselves.

The Left wants a tax on large fortunes again. Berlin should make proposals for this at the federal level. The federal government might say no. Then the Left will check whether the states can introduce the tax themselves.

The Left calls for a far-reaching reform of the Schuldenbremse (debt brake) so that states and municipalities can invest more. Berlin's share of the federal special fund is to go specifically toward the social and ecological transformation of companies and serve civilian purposes only.

The debt brake limits how much the state may borrow. The Left wants to change this rule a lot. States and cities should be able to invest more money. Berlin gets 5 billion euros from the federal government. This money should only go to civilian uses, not to weapons.

The Left wants to examine whether commercial properties that sit empty long-term can be taxed. The platform points to a vacancy rate of at least 8 percent for commercial space in Berlin. Because this requires a basis in federal law, the party wants to push for one through the Bundesrat.

Many commercial spaces in Berlin are empty. The Left wants to look into a tax on such empty spaces. This needs a federal law. The Left wants to push for it in the Bundesrat.

The Left wants to fundamentally change the system by which Berlin's boroughs receive money. Funding would be based on need, because the platform argues the current budgeting method creates the wrong incentives and pits the boroughs against each other.

The Left wants to fund the boroughs in a new way. The money should match what they need. The party says the boroughs have too little money today. And they have to fight each other for it.

The Left wants to adopt a rent cap for the roughly 400,000 apartments owned by Berlin's state-owned housing companies. Rents would first be frozen for one year, and after that increases would be limited by law to one percent a year. The platform argues that many tenants can no longer afford the recent increases.

Berlin owns its own housing companies. The Left wants to limit rents there. For one year, no rent should go up. After that, rent may rise by only 1 percent a year. Very high rents should go down.

The Left wants vacant apartments owned by the state housing companies to go primarily to households with a Wohnberechtigungsschein (certificate of eligibility for subsidized housing) and to homeless people. Evictions over rent arrears would no longer take place there. The platform says this is meant to keep people from being stuck in emergency shelters.

The Left wants to hand out the city's free apartments differently. People with little money should get them first. People without a home should also get more apartments. People who owe rent should not lose their home there.

The Left wants the state-owned housing companies to be easier to reach, to do work with their own staff again and to lower heating costs. Tenants would get more say, and more would be invested in the surroundings of large housing estates.

The Left wants better service in the city's apartments. There should be offices with fixed opening hours. The companies' own caretakers should do repairs again. Heating should cost less. Tenants should have more say.

The Left wants to rule out sales from the holdings of the state-owned housing companies and write a ban on privatization into the state constitution. At the same time, the companies would build more and buy additional housing to raise the share of apartments run for the common good.

The Left does not want to sell any of the city's apartments. This ban should be written into Berlin's constitution. The city's housing companies should build more. They should also buy more apartments.

The Left wants to implement the 2021 referendum "Deutsche Wohnen & Co enteignen" (expropriate Deutsche Wohnen & Co.) and bring 220,000 apartments into public ownership. A socialization law is to be drafted on the basis of the initiative's own bill. The party calls this one of its top priorities and justifies it with the goal of affordable rents.

In 2021, Berlin held a public vote. Most voters wanted to take over big housing companies. The Left wants to do this now. 220,000 apartments would then belong to the city. A new law is needed for this.

The Left wants to crack down on excessive rents and set up a task force with additional staff to do so. Tenants would get back rent they overpaid. According to the platform, housing offices currently lack the staff and effective procedures.

Some landlords charge too much rent. That is against the law. The Left wants stricter checks. A new team with more staff should do this. Tenants should get their money back.

The Left wants to stop the temporary letting of furnished apartments and ban it in all Milieuschutzgebiete (neighborhood preservation areas). In the platform's view, furnishing lets landlords make higher profits.

Some landlords rent out apartments with furniture for a short time only. This way they charge more money. The Left wants to ban this. The ban should apply in specially protected neighborhoods.

The Left wants a comprehensive ban on vacation rentals in residential buildings and wants to shut down illegal listings. The platform argues that Berlin needs every affordable apartment and that tens of thousands of apartments are being misused.

In Berlin, many apartments are rented to tourists. Often this is not allowed. The Left wants to ban vacation rentals in residential buildings. The apartments should be for living in again.

The Left wants to detect and penalize speculative vacancies and have long-empty buildings repaired by official order. Squatting would no longer be a crime, and occupying housing that has been empty for at least a year could lead to a permanent right to live there.

Some homes in Berlin stay empty for a long time. The Left wants to find these homes and punish the owners. People should be allowed to squat in empty houses without punishment. If a home was empty for a year, squatters may stay.

The Left calls for a halt to demolishing affordable housing. Demolition would be allowed only in narrowly defined exceptions because, according to the platform, hundreds of low-cost apartments are lost every year.

Every year, cheap homes in Berlin are torn down. The Left wants to ban this in almost all cases. Only a few exceptions should be allowed. Half of the homes in the new building must then be cheap.

The Left wants to use digital tools to search the housing market for illegal rental offers and to equip agencies to investigate. It also wants apartment hunting moved from private platforms such as ImmobilienScout24 into public hands; the platform accuses these companies of profiting from apartment seekers and pushing rents up.

The Left wants to check rental ads with computer programs. This should help offices find illegal offers. Looking for a home should no longer run through private websites. The city should offer the search itself.

The Left wants stronger protection against termination: landlords could claim a home for personal use only for first-degree relatives, and more hardship cases would rule out a termination. Converting rental apartments into condominiums would be permanently barred, and districts would assist with forced evictions only to a minimal extent.

Landlords can end a lease if they need the home themselves. The Left wants to allow this only for parents and children. Old people, sick people and families should get more protection. Rental homes should no longer be turned into homes for sale.

The Left wants a law requiring large landlords to rent a fixed share of the apartments that become vacant to low- and middle-income households at capped rents. A new state office for tenant protection would enforce this and collect data on owners.

Large landlords should have to rent out part of their free homes cheaply. A new law should set this rule. The more homes a landlord owns, the bigger the share. A new office should check this.

The Left wants to expand free tenancy-law counseling in the districts and reverse funding cuts. Applications for Wohngeld (housing benefit) and the Wohnberechtigungsschein (WBS, a certificate of eligibility for subsidized housing) would be processed faster, with a guaranteed two-week deadline for the WBS.

The Left wants more free advice for renters. Requests for housing benefit should be done faster. The WBS is a paper you need for subsidized homes. People should get this paper within two weeks.

The Left wants to create two funds: one providing grants toward heating costs for low-income households and one offering interest-free loans for rental deposits. The platform cites high back payments for heating and deposits running to several thousand euros.

Many people cannot pay for heating. The Left wants to help them with money from a fund. A fund is a pot of money for one purpose. A second fund should lend money for the rental deposit, with no interest.

The Left wants to reduce discrimination in how apartments are allocated and to give single parents reliable access to suitable housing. According to the platform, women, trans and gender-diverse people, single parents and people with a migration background are hit especially hard by housing shortages and discrimination.

Some people have a harder time getting a home than others. This affects single parents and people with migrant roots, for example. The Left wants to change that. Housing applications should be checked without names.

The Left wants to launch a construction program for student and trainee housing. It also plans to push at the federal level for BAföG (student aid) that does not depend on parental income and for affordable transit. In the party's view, housing costs must not push young people into poverty.

The Left wants to build more dorms. Students and trainees should live there. Student aid should no longer depend on what parents earn. Buses and trains should be affordable for students too.

The Left wants to subsidize senior-friendly apartment conversions and tie that funding to rent caps and allocation rules. Older tenants would also be protected from owner-occupancy terminations and evictions. The goal is for everyone to live safely, independently and socially connected in old age.

The Left wants apartments to be rebuilt for older people. Rents should stay affordable. Landlords should not end leases of seniors to move in themselves. Seniors should not be evicted. There should also be help against loneliness.

The Left wants to make swapping apartments much easier so that existing housing better fits people's life situations. At the state-owned housing companies (LWU), tenants would keep their previous rent per square meter after a swap. At the federal level, the party seeks a legal right to swap apartments.

Some people have an apartment that is too big. Others have one that is too small. The Left wants to make swapping apartments easier. The rent per square meter should stay the same after a swap. People who move in together should get money.

The Left wants an action program to renovate and upgrade Berlin's 24 large housing estates without raising rents. According to the party, the estates should become more social, cleaner and safer.

Berlin has 24 large housing estates. The Left wants to renovate the apartments there. Rents should not go up. There should be more green space, sports areas and lighting. The estates should be cleaner.

The Left wants to stop the loss of social housing with a package of new construction, bringing housing back into public ownership, and regulation. According to the program, Berlin has lost nearly 120,000 social housing units since 2021 because restrictions expired; the party fears rent hikes and displacement.

Berlin has lost many social housing units. These are cheap apartments for people with little money. The Left wants to stop this with a rescue program. The city should build and buy apartments. Large housing corporations should belong to the public.

The Left wants to use the Bundesrat to achieve a nationwide rent cap, including for commercial rents. It also calls for restoring the municipal right of first refusal and banning share deals. In the party's view, many problems of Berlin's housing market can only be solved at the federal level.

The Left wants a rent cap for all of Germany. A rent cap is a fixed limit on rents. It should also apply to shops and small businesses. The city should again be allowed to buy buildings before other buyers. Certain tax tricks in property sales should be banned.

The Left wants to give the state-owned housing companies up to 2 billion euros in equity each year so they can build 7,500 permanently affordable apartments annually. Rents in existing apartments are not supposed to rise as a result. In the party's view, too little is being built so far, at too high a cost, and of the wrong kind.

The Left wants the city itself to build more apartments. 7,500 new apartments should be built every year. The state gives up to 2 billion euros a year for this. Rent should be between 6 and 12 euros per square meter. It depends on income.

The Left wants to tighten the cooperative land development rules through which Berlin obliges private developers to build affordable housing. Instead of 30 percent temporary social housing, at least two-thirds of the floor area would be rent- and allocation-restricted. According to the program, private companies build affordably only under such obligations.

Private companies must build cheap apartments in some projects. So far that share is 30 percent. The Left wants to raise it to at least two-thirds. The party says private companies hardly build cheap apartments without a duty.

The Left wants to sharply reduce public subsidies for private housing projects. Subsidized apartments would stay under rent and occupancy restrictions for at least 50 years, following Hamburg's example.

The Left wants to give private builders less public money. Subsidized apartments should stay cheap for longer. The rules should apply for at least 50 years. Hamburg already does this.

The Left wants to speed up planning and construction by adding staff in the boroughs, digitizing processes and involving the public early. It rejects the "Schneller-Bauen-Gesetz" (faster building act) and the federal "Bau-Turbo" because, in its view, they weaken democratic, social and environmental standards. The federal rules would be used in Berlin only under strict conditions.

The Left wants building to go faster. The boroughs should get more staff. Processes should become digital. People should have a say early on. The Left thinks the federal fast-track rules are wrong. It wants to use them only with strict limits.

The Left rejects the Senate's current plans for an international building exhibition. It would be open to one if conversion and renovation take priority and new housing is built to stay affordable by non-profit-oriented providers.

The Senate plans a big building exhibition. The Left rejects these plans. It wants an exhibition only with clear rules. Old buildings should be converted, not torn down. New apartments should stay cheap for good.

The Left wants to strengthen housing cooperatives with more funding, better access to state-owned land and a new commissioner for cooperatives. Funding would in the future depend on a provider's purpose rather than its legal form, so that small cooperatives and groups like the Mietshäusersyndikat also benefit.

Cooperatives are groups that own housing together. The Left wants to give them more money. They should get state land more easily. Small groups should also be able to get funding. A new contact person should look after cooperatives.

The Left wants to largely prevent the demolition of office and commercial buildings through the building code and convert more vacant space into affordable apartments. It justifies this with climate protection and the high vacancy rate.

Many offices in Berlin are empty. The Left wants to turn them into cheap apartments. Tearing down such buildings should rarely be allowed. The state should help pay for conversions. The Left says this also helps the climate.

The Left wants new zoning plans (Bebauungspläne) to meet strict social, environmental, and urban-design standards. At the federal level, Berlin is to push for permanent "sectoral" zoning plans, which allow quotas for subsidized housing in areas that currently have no zoning plan.

A zoning plan says what can be built on a piece of land. The Left wants strict rules for these plans. The plans should be social and protect nature. They should also say how many low-cost homes must be built. The city districts should get more staff and money for this work.

The Left wants to prioritize new city districts, especially on state-owned land, over adding buildings in existing neighborhoods. On public land, all new housing could be rent- and occupancy-controlled; on private land, either half the area would go to the state or two-thirds of the floor space would be controlled.

The Left wants to build new city districts faster. Many low-cost homes should be built there. On city land, all new homes could be low-cost. Private builders should hand half of their land to Berlin. Or they build two-thirds of the homes with fixed low rents.

The Left wants to shape Berlin's historic center and City West as public spaces with plenty of culture and little commercial use. The Central and State Library is to move into the Galeria department store at Alexanderplatz, and the Molkenmarkt is to get affordable housing and low-cost cultural spaces. The party rejects demolition and large new buildings at the Galeria sites on Hermannplatz and Ku'damm.

The Left wants Berlin's center to be a place for everyone. There should be fewer shops and more culture. The big state library should move into the department store at Alexanderplatz. Low-cost homes should be built at Molkenmarkt. The department stores at Hermannplatz and Ku'damm should stay.

The Left opposes making it easier to plan and build high-rises for offices or expensive apartments and wants to revise the city's high-rise guidelines. Its reasoning is that high construction costs mean high-rises usually do not produce affordable housing.

The Left wants fewer new high-rise buildings in Berlin. High-rises cost a lot to build. So they usually do not offer low-cost homes. The rules for high-rises should become stricter. The party rejects a planned very tall building in Friedrichshain.

The Left wants to stop granting building rights for new office complexes, because the program says about 2.2 million square meters of office space stand empty in Berlin. Instead, vacant office buildings are to be converted, supported by federal funds and a new state funding program.

Many offices in Berlin are empty. New office buildings are still being built. The Left wants to stop this. Empty offices should be used in other ways. Federal and state money should pay for that. Owners who leave offices empty should face penalties.

The Left wants to favor adding floors, conversions, and renovation over land-intensive new construction. Demolitions would require a permit under strict criteria, and tearing down intact buildings would be banned. A registry is to record vacant properties systematically.

The Left prefers to convert old buildings instead of building new ones. No one should be allowed to tear down good buildings. Every demolition should need a permit. A list should show which buildings are empty. The former sports center SEZ should be kept.

Together with the districts, the Left wants to review all infill projects by state-owned housing companies that have not yet been built. Urban-design criteria are to apply to future projects, and residents are to have more say. Projects that have not gone through such a process would be put on hold until they do.

Infill means building on open space inside an existing neighborhood. The Left wants to check such plans by the city's housing companies. People living nearby should have more say. Some projects should pause until then. A public list should show empty building plots.

The Left wants to treat land as a public good and to keep and enlarge the state's holdings. A land protection law (Bodensicherungsgesetz) is to pool all land and buildings owned by the state and its companies into a Berlin land fund and prohibit their sale in principle. Ground-lease rates for cooperatives and public-interest housing are to drop substantially.

The Left wants Berlin to keep its land. The city should even buy more land. A new law should forbid selling city land. Housing cooperatives should pay less for leased land. This should keep rents low. A council of citizens should have a say in land policy.

The Left wants to reorient homelessness policy around the Housing First principle: a home of one's own comes first, then other problems are tackled. The strategy conference on homelessness services is to become a permanent body again.

The Left wants to end homelessness. People without a home should get an apartment first. After that they can solve other problems. Agencies, charities and affected people should work together regularly.

The Left wants binding quotas for allocating apartments. Ten percent of newly let or re-let state-owned and subsidized apartments are to go to homeless people. Large private landlords are also to be bound by law to such a quota.

The Left wants to set aside apartments for people without a home. One in ten state-owned apartments that become free should go to them. Large private landlords should have to do this too. Homeless families should come first.

The Left rejects evictions that leave people without a home and wants to ban state-owned housing companies from carrying them out. District support offices are to be strengthened so that tenants at risk get help early.

Some people are forced out of their apartment and end up on the street. The Left wants to stop that. The state's housing companies should no longer be allowed to do it. Affected people should get advice early.

The Left wants to significantly raise the share of accessible and low-barrier apartments in Berlin. Public money should only flow where accessibility is ensured, and a central office should match suitable apartments with people who need them.

The Left wants more homes without barriers. These homes are called accessible. Public money should only go to accessible building. A new office should help people find these homes. The homes should go to people who need them.

The Left wants to cap rents in student dormitories and support a youth housing agency for Berlin. The student services organization and a new counterpart for apprentices would be allowed to borrow so they can build and renovate themselves. In addition, the free public transit ticket for school students, apprentices, volunteer service participants and care leavers would become permanent.

Young people often have too little money for rent. The Left wants to limit rents in student dorms. The student services organization should be able to build housing itself. School students and apprentices should ride buses and trains for free for good.

The Left wants to close large collective shelters such as the one in Tegel and house refugees in apartments or, as a transition, in smaller decentralized accommodation. To that end, rental quotas are to rise and the housing eligibility certificate is to cover all refugees.

Refugees should not live in huge shelters. The shelter in Tegel should close. Refugees should get their own apartments. More low-cost apartments should be rented to them.

The Left wants to require investors in large housing projects to build publicly accessible outdoor sports areas. New city districts are to be planned with enough indoor and outdoor sports facilities and a swimming pool. In the party's view, sports and housing construction should not be pitted against each other.

Anyone who builds many new homes should also have to build sports areas. These areas should be open and free for everyone. New city districts should get a swimming pool. If a sports site is removed, a replacement should be built nearby.

The Left wants to keep and expand non-commercial meeting places for young people such as youth clubs, adventure playgrounds and libraries. Every district should have at least one self-managed youth space. It also rejects Bundeswehr recruiting aimed at young people in public spaces and wants to abolish police stops without suspicion.

Young people need places where they can meet. They should not have to pay there. The Left wants to keep and expand youth clubs and similar places. Every district should have one place that young people run themselves. Police should no longer stop people without a reason.

The Left wants to shield child and youth services from budget cuts and fund them long term rather than project by project. Money is to be earmarked, and staff are to be paid under collective agreements. The platform argues that relationship-based work with young people requires continuity.

The Left wants to protect services for children and young people. Money should no longer come only for short projects. Money meant for youth clubs should really reach the youth clubs. Staff should be paid under a union wage agreement.

The Left wants better protection for young people who drop out of youth welfare services when they turn 18. The transition into adult life is to be strengthened with new concepts and more funding. According to the platform, many so-called care leavers otherwise face homelessness in the medium term.

Some young people grow up in group homes or foster families. At 18, many of them lose their support. The Left wants to change that. It wants more money and better plans for this time. This should keep young people from ending up without a home.

The Left holds an open definition of family and wants to support all family types in everyday life. Single parents and foster families are to get better security. Berlin's family promotion law is to be implemented and developed further.

For the Left, family is where people care for each other. It wants to support all kinds of families. Single parents should get more help and more security. Foster families should not be worse off than other families. Family advice centers should get lasting funding.

The Left wants the state of Berlin to cover the full cost of Hilfen zur Erziehung (support services for children and families in difficult situations), arguing that district budgets are not sufficient. Youth welfare offices would regain more control, and the city would build up its own public services. Budget pressure should not determine what help an individual receives.

Some children and families in hard situations get special support. The Left wants the state of Berlin to pay for all of it. Youth welfare offices should decide more themselves again. The city should build its own services.

The Left wants more staff for the Regionaler Sozialer Dienst (the youth welfare offices' regional social service) so that each caseworker handles fewer cases. The child protection network would continue to be funded and developed. Facilities serving young people would be required to have protection plans against violence.

The regional social service is part of the youth welfare office. It helps families and protects children. The Left wants more staff there. Each worker should have fewer cases. Places for children should make plans to protect them from violence.

The Left wants to continue and expand Berlin's state programs for single parents. The platform argues that single parents, more than 85 percent of whom are women in Berlin, are especially often affected by insecure working conditions and low pay.

The Left wants to help single parents more. They should find it easier to finish school or job training later. There should be more part-time training places. Childcare should also be available early and late. Single parents who are refugees should get their own programs.

The Left wants to strengthen street social work in the districts and expand exit programs because, in its account, right-wing extremists are increasingly recruiting young people. Services against child poverty are to be better coordinated, since the program holds that social injustice makes young people more open to authoritarian thinking.

Right-wing extremists try to win over young people. So the Left wants more social work on the streets. There should be more programs to help people leave the far-right scene. Help against child poverty should work together better.

The Left wants to found an institute and a degree program for nonprofit housing management. This is meant to train specialists for the public-interest restructuring of the sector that the party is aiming for.

The Left wants to create a new field of study. People learn there how housing companies work without a profit goal. There should also be a new institute. The party says that so far only for-profit real estate is taught.

The Left wants to expand the training levy so that companies that train apprentices are reimbursed in full for all of them. The aim is more apprenticeship slots, since the platform says thousands of applicants are left without one each year. The party also backs an Azubi-Werk (apprentice services agency) offering affordable housing.

Many young people in Berlin cannot find an apprenticeship. The Left wants to help companies that train apprentices. These companies should get their costs back. The money comes from a levy. That means all companies pay into a shared fund. Apprentices should also get affordable housing.

The Left wants to keep education free of charge from daycare through university and make further services free. It argues that education is part of basic public services and that one in four children in Berlin grows up in poverty.

The Left wants education to cost nothing. This applies from daycare to university. The free transit ticket for students should stay. Older students should also get free lunch and free schoolbooks. After-school care should also be free in fourth grade.

The Left wants many more Gemeinschaftsschulen (community schools), where children learn together from first grade through graduation. In the medium term it wants to move beyond the tracked school system. In its view, these schools decouple learning progress from social background.

At a community school, all children learn together. This goes from first grade to graduation. The Left wants many more of these schools. Each district should start at least two new ones by 2031. Later, there should be no separate school types.

The Left wants to train more teachers, ease the load on current staff, and spread trained teachers more evenly across districts and schools. It accuses the Senate of having reduced the teacher shortage only on paper. Cuts made by the CDU-SPD coalition are to be reversed.

Berlin does not have enough teachers. The Left wants to train more of them. They should work less overtime. Their working hours should be recorded exactly. Teachers should be spread more fairly across schools. Degrees from other countries should be recognized more easily.

The Left wants to give schools more staff alongside teachers, such as school assistants, administrative managers, and IT specialists. A dedicated budget is to let schools hire additional professionals such as therapists on permanent contracts themselves. The improvements are to start at schools in difficult circumstances.

Schools should not have only teachers. The Left wants more helpers, IT experts, and office staff. Schools should get their own money for more specialists. These can be speech therapists, for example. Schools with the biggest challenges get this help first.

The Left wants schools that lack teachers to be allowed to cut lessons in a targeted way instead of having classes canceled at random. Language support and individual support would take priority, because the platform says the shortage currently hits the children who need the most help.

Berlin does not have enough teachers. The Left wants schools to be allowed to shorten their timetable in a planned way. Lessons should no longer be canceled at random. Help for individual children and language help should come first.

The Left wants schools facing many difficulties to get priority for money and staff. It also plans a pilot project called "Zukunftsschulen" (schools of the future) in which such schools can work with more freedom. The platform argues that Berlin's education system structurally disadvantages many children.

Some schools have a lot of problems. The Left wants to give these schools more money and more staff. There will also be a new project. It is called "Zukunftsschulen", which means schools of the future. These schools can use the curriculum more freely.

The Left wants to expand psychosocial care for children and teenagers by placing psychologists directly in schools. The plan calls for one professional per 800 students.

The Left wants to do more for children's mental health. Schools should have psychologists. One psychologist should be there for 800 children. Children can get help there easily.

The Left wants every Berlin school to have at least one school social work position, including upper-secondary vocational centers and newly founded schools. In the longer run, there should be one social worker for every 150 students.

Every school in Berlin should have at least one school social worker. This also applies to new schools. Later there should be even more. Then one social worker should be there for 150 children.

The Left wants every child to be able to attend an inclusive school close to home, citing the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. It rejects new or enlarged special-needs schools. Instead, a state plan with fixed goals, deadlines and investment funds is to be drawn up.

Children with and without disabilities should learn together. This is called inclusion. The Left does not want to build new special schools. It wants a plan for all of Berlin. The plan should have clear goals and money.

The Left wants the move to secondary school to depend less on grades. The trial lesson used as an entry test would be dropped, more places would be assigned by lottery, and repeating a year would end at Gymnasien (academic high schools) too. The party says this would ease pressure on children and counter social separation in schools.

After elementary school, children move to a new school. The Left wants to make this move easier. The trial lesson as a test should end. More school places should be given out by lottery. No child should have to repeat a year, even at a Gymnasium.

The Left sees multilingualism as a valuable skill and wants schools to foster it. First-language classes would grow, and Arabic and Kurdish would become available as foreign languages.

Many children in Berlin speak more than one language. The Left thinks this is valuable. Children should get more lessons in their first language at school. Arabic and Kurdish should become new school subjects.

The Left wants to strengthen schools in dealing with far-right incidents. It plans funded prevention programs, staff training, guidelines and grants for projects started by students. The party points to what it sees as a rightward shift in society.

The Left wants to help schools deal with the far right. There should be programs for prevention. Teachers should get training. Students should get money for their own projects for democracy.

The Left wants to make schools more democratic and give students more say. Student councils would get their own money and defined rights. The party regards the class council as the key tool for this.

Students should have more say at school. Their student councils should get their own money. They should also have clear rights. This applies to elementary schools too. There should be rooms that students run themselves.

The Left wants to strengthen the school subject of civic education and also introduce it in elementary schools from fourth grade and in vocational schools. Out-of-school providers and the state agency for civic education are to be put on a secure long-term footing. According to the platform, the aim is to enable young people to think and act politically for themselves.

The Left wants more civics classes in schools. The subject should start in fourth grade. Vocational schools should also teach it. Groups that offer civic education should get money for longer periods.

The Left wants to make media education a binding part of curricula from elementary school on and give all students access to digital devices and the internet for school purposes. Schools are to get their own media officers and IT administrators. On software, the platform favors open source and a cautious approach to artificial intelligence.

Children should learn how to handle media from elementary school on. All students should be able to use a laptop for school. Poor families get the device for free. Every school should get experts for its technology. Computer programs should not give grades.

The Left rejects blanket cell phone bans for all grade levels. Each school community is to work out its own rules democratically. As long as no such rule exists, the school day is to be phone-free as a default up to and including ninth grade.

The Left does not want a phone ban for all grades. Each school should decide its own phone rules. Students, parents and teachers decide together. If there is no rule yet, phones stay off through ninth grade.

The Left wants to replace numerical grades with oral and written feedback through ninth grade at all types of schools and to cut back homework. This is meant to reduce performance pressure and foster students' own motivation. In the platform's view, homework deepens social inequality because not all children have time, quiet and help at home.

The Left wants no number grades through ninth grade. Teachers should say or write how a child is doing instead. There should be less homework. Practice should mostly happen at school. Children should have free time without required tasks.

The Left wants to end all cooperation between the Bundeswehr (German armed forces) and Berlin schools and to ban advertising to and recruitment of minors. Schools are to be military-free places where civilian peace education is firmly anchored. The party rejects conscription in any form.

The army should no longer come to Berlin schools. It should not advertise to children and teenagers. Schools should teach peace education instead. The Left is against a military draft.

The Left wants to continue Berlin's school construction drive and speed it up where possible because, according to the platform, more than 25,000 school places are still missing. School buildings are to be more open to sports, music and other neighborhood uses. Through the Bundesrat, the party wants to initiate a special fund for education.

Berlin should keep building new schools and repairing old ones. The platform says over 25,000 school places are still missing. Clubs and music groups should be allowed to use school buildings. The federal government should create a special pot of money for education.

The Left wants to markedly improve staffing in all-day programs at elementary schools: one full-time educator is to be responsible for 15 children instead of the current calculated 22. Federal money from the investment program for expanding all-day schooling is to be used for this. Management, rooms, cafeterias and school libraries are also to be better resourced.

More educators should work in all-day school programs. One staff member should look after only 15 children. Today the number is 22 on paper. Schools should get more cafeterias. Educators everywhere should be paid under a union wage agreement.

The Left wants to municipalize the cleaning of Berlin's schools in the coming legislative term, meaning the public sector would do the work itself. The same step is to be examined for school lunches.

Schools should be cleaned by the boroughs' own workers. Today private companies often do this. The state should give the boroughs money and jobs for it. The Left also wants to look into this for school lunches.

The Left wants to fund out-of-school education providers adequately and deepen their cooperation with schools, especially in all-day programs. Cultural education is to be secured permanently because, in the platform's view, it is the key to taking part in cultural life.

Learning programs outside school should get enough money. These include music schools and youth art schools. They should work more closely with schools. The money should be secure and not at risk in every budget.

The Left wants everyone to leave school with a path toward vocational training or university, and promises a training guarantee. Career orientation is to start in elementary school and be a task for the whole school. The Oberstufenzentren (vocational school centers) are to be modernized technically.

Every young person should have a plan for a career after school. Those who do not want to go to college should be offered a training place. Schools should teach about jobs early. All schools should get workshops. Vocational schools should get modern equipment.

The Left wants to expand the eleventh compulsory school year and make it easier for young people to move into dual vocational training. School-based and company-based vocational education would be handled by a single Senate department so that the transition into work has no gaps.

The Left wants to help young people more after school. The eleventh school year should offer more chances. Young people should be able to switch into job training more easily. One single department should be in charge of job training.

The Left wants to keep ethics as a regular school subject in Berlin. It rejects mandatory religious education, even in the form of a required elective.

In Berlin, all students take ethics class. The Left wants to keep it that way. Religion should not become a required subject. This also applies to a required elective.

The Left wants a binding tuition schedule for private schools and wants to enforce the constitutional ban on segregation by wealth (Sonderungsverbot). That ban says private schools may not select children based on their parents' income. The party gives priority to the public school system.

The Left wants fixed rules for tuition at private schools. Private schools may not pick children based on their parents' money. That is in the German constitution. The Left wants everyone to follow this rule. Public schools matter most to the party.

The Left wants to offer permanent positions to the freelance instructors at Berlin's Volkshochschulen (adult education centers) and music schools, without requiring them to reapply. This is meant to give them job security and give the districts legal certainty. Literacy and basic education programs for adults would also continue to be funded according to need.

Many teachers at adult education centers and music schools have no permanent job. The Left wants to offer them one. They would not have to apply again. There should also still be money for courses in reading, writing and math.

The Left wants to raise daycare quality with more staff and more space per child. Falling birth rates are to be used to improve the staff-to-child ratio. In addition, Berlin's existing early education curriculum is to be defended, and child protection and health protection in daycare centers are to be strengthened.

The Left wants better daycare centers. Each trained worker should care for fewer children. Every child should have more space. All staff should know how to protect children. Daycare centers should become quieter and cooler in summer.

The Left wants to keep the pilot program for social work in daycare centers and expand it in stages. In the medium term, ten percent of Berlin's daycare children are to benefit, and in the long term the service is to be available everywhere. According to the platform, it strengthens child protection and relieves staff.

Some daycare centers have social workers. They help families with paperwork and other problems. The Left wants more of them. Soon, one in ten daycare children should have this help. Later, it should exist all over Berlin.

The Left wants to strengthen Berlin's state-owned daycare operators and raise their share of the city's daycare places to one third. Rooms and staff are to stay in the daycare system despite falling numbers of children. Daycare funding, which the party considers inadequate, is to be reviewed from the ground up.

Berlin has its own daycare operators. The Left wants them to offer one in three daycare places. There are fewer children than before. Rooms and staff should stay anyway. The Left wants new rules for paying for daycare. It is looking at a charge for employers.

The Left wants to lower barriers to daycare that, according to the platform, mainly affect children with disabilities and those from disadvantaged groups. All families are to receive the daycare voucher automatically, and youth welfare offices are to have access to a share of places. Home-based childcare providers are to be paid better.

Not all children get a daycare place easily. The Left wants to change that. Every family should get the daycare voucher automatically. It should be easy to understand. Youth offices should assign some places to children in hard situations. Home-based childcare workers should get more money.

The Left wants every child to be able to attend daycare for at least two years before starting school, in order to build language skills. Home languages are to be recognized and used in daily daycare life. For children with disabilities, the party plans a push for barrier-free early education.

Every child should be able to attend daycare for at least two years before school. Children learn to speak better there. Families' home languages should also have a place in daycare. Parents should not have to pay fines. Children with disabilities should find a daycare place everywhere.

The Left wants to improve training for daycare staff and have more of it take place at public schools. Private schools would have to meet the same quality requirements. The program argues that many educators will retire soon and that, in the party's view, the profession risks losing its professional standards.

The Left wants better training for daycare workers. More people should train at public schools. Private schools should follow the same rules. Practical hours during training should be paid.

The Left wants to sign new university contracts that fund higher education institutions adequately, with securing study places as the priority. The renovation backlog is to be reduced; the party accepts a public university construction company able to borrow only under certain conditions.

The Left wants to give Berlin's universities enough money. There should be new firm contracts for this. Study places should be safe. Old buildings should be repaired. Private companies should not be the only ones to profit from this.

The Left wants studying in Berlin to remain free of tuition fees, including for students from abroad. The Studierendenwerk (student services organization) is to get more state money.

Studying in Berlin should stay free. This also applies to students from other countries. The student services organization should get more money. It helps students with advice, food and housing.

The Left wants universities to develop their research questions together with the city's residents and to make their findings publicly accessible. Open science is to receive targeted funding, and science communication is to be expanded.

The Left wants research to be open to everyone. Universities should work together with the people of Berlin. Everyone should be able to read research results. There should be funding for this.

The Left wants permanent tasks at universities to be carried out by staff on permanent contracts. Adjunct teaching is to be paid better, outsourced areas brought back in-house where needed, and the chair system replaced by department structures.

The Left wants better jobs at universities. People who do lasting tasks should get a permanent job. Adjunct teachers should get more pay. Universities should not hand work over to outside companies.

The Left wants to make access to study and academic work easier for disadvantaged groups. This includes support programs, more inclusion, stronger anti-discrimination work and more equality for women in academia.

The Left wants everyone to be able to study well. Disadvantaged students should get more help. People with disabilities should get suitable places to study. Universities should do more against discrimination.

The Left wants to further democratize university governing bodies. Technical, service and administrative staff are to take part in academic self-governance and also have a say in professorial appointments.

The Left wants more participation at universities. All groups should have a say. Technical and administrative staff should also help decide. For example, when new professors are chosen.

The Left wants to promote the quality of teaching and study. It plans more research-oriented teaching, more student-led tutorials, a stronger role for students in quality assurance and fewer exams.

The Left wants better teaching at universities. There should be more tutorials. These are study groups led by students. Students should be able to give their opinion on teaching. There should be fewer exams.

The Left wants to remove the disciplinary measures from Berlin's Higher Education Act. In the platform's view, they are aimed one-sidedly at disciplining students.

Berlin's university law contains disciplinary measures. These are penalties a university can impose on students. The Left wants to abolish these penalties. It says the rules are aimed one-sidedly at students.

The Left wants to secure freedom of research and teaching through solid funding and by protecting university autonomy. Threatened fields of research and researchers facing hostility are to receive support, and civil clauses are to be implemented and extended.

The Left wants to protect the freedom of research. Universities should get enough money. Researchers who are threatened should get protection. Universities should only do research for peaceful purposes. This rule is called a civil clause.

The Left wants Berlin to produce 3,000 teaching graduates every year, arguing that hiring needs will stay at that level. Universities are to receive additional money for this, and training capacity is to be tied to demand by law.

Berlin needs more teachers. The Left wants to train 3,000 new teachers every year. Universities should get more money for this. A law should say: there are as many places to study as Berlin needs teachers.

The Left wants to gear teacher training degrees more closely to the profession. Teaching methods, educational science and classroom practice are to carry more weight from the bachelor's level on, and the practical semester is to be better supervised.

The Left wants to change the degree for future teachers. Students should get more practice in schools. They should learn earlier how to teach well. In the practical semester they should get more guidance. They should also be paid for it.

The Left wants training to be the focus of the Referendariat (the post-degree teacher traineeship) and to raise pay to at least 1,800 euros. The teaching load counted against school staffing is to drop back to seven hours a week.

Trainee teachers are still learning the job. The Left wants to pay them at least 1,800 euros. They should have to teach fewer hours on their own. That leaves more time to learn. Experienced teachers should guide them better.

The Left continues to see lateral entry as a way to recruit new teachers and wants to widen access. The list of shortage subjects is to be reviewed and extended or abolished altogether, and applicants with only one subject are to be allowed to teach as well.

Some people become teachers without a teaching degree. This is called lateral entry. The Left wants to make it easier. People with only one school subject should also be able to become teachers. They then get extra training in how to teach.

The Left wants practical, high-quality continuing education for staff at Berlin's schools. Training on inclusion, anti-discrimination, democracy education, and media literacy would become mandatory offerings. The platform argues that lifelong learning also improves school quality.

The Left wants better training for people who work in schools. Some topics should be required. Examples are inclusion and democracy. Schools should get extra training days for this.

The Left wants to modernize legal education: less mandatory material in the exam, a digital first state exam, and blind second grading. More training places in the Referendariat (post-graduate legal traineeship) are meant to shorten long waiting times, and the part-time option should be possible without a pay cut.

The Left wants to change how lawyers are trained. The exam should cover less required material. Students should be able to write the exam on a computer. The second grader should not know the first grade. There should be more places in the legal traineeship.

The Left sees health care as a public service and wants it oriented toward the population's needs rather than profit. The basis is to be planning across outpatient, hospital and nursing care, along with more prevention and better training in health professions.

The Left wants to plan health care better. Planning should follow what people need. Profit should play no part. The city should do more to keep people healthy. Training for health jobs should get better.

The Left wants to build up the public health service (ÖGD) as a third pillar of health care. Health offices should get enough staff and infrastructure for all their legal duties and be allowed to provide diagnosis and treatment themselves where other care falls short.

The Left wants stronger public health offices. They should get more staff and better equipment. Open jobs should be filled. The offices should also be allowed to treat people. That applies where there are too few doctors.

The Left calls for reliable funding of Berlin's services against HIV and AIDS and for access to prevention and treatment for everyone, including refugees. Because vaccination rates are falling, vaccination campaigns and checkup programs are also to be expanded.

The Left wants steady funding for the fight against HIV. Everyone should get HIV medicine. That includes refugees. There should be more campaigns for vaccines. More people should go to health checkups.

The Left wants to fund two care centers for homeless people and set up outreach health services for the uninsured. According to the program, current care depends heavily on donations and volunteers. Barriers for disadvantaged groups in the health system are also to be reduced.

The Left wants to pay for two health centers for homeless people. Doctors, nurses and social workers will work there. Helpers should also go out to people. This helps people without health insurance. Doctors' offices should be free of barriers.

The Left wants a special program to set up medical care centers (MVZ) under public or nonprofit ownership to tackle the shortage of doctors, especially in underserved neighborhoods and in eastern Berlin. The party rejects investor-run centers and wants more affordable space for practices.

Some parts of Berlin have too few doctors. The Left wants to build new health centers there. The state, the districts or nonprofit groups should own them. The state pays to get them started. There should also be more affordable rooms for doctors' offices.

The Left wants to expand pilot projects for community health nurses and tie them more closely to municipal health centers. These nurses are meant to advise people in their neighborhoods and help those with poor access to the health system reach medical care.

Community health nurses work in neighborhoods. They give people advice about their health. The Left wants more projects like this. This should help old and sick people most.

The Left wants better care for people with ME/CFS, long Covid and post-vac syndrome, especially those who cannot be transported. It plans home visits, telemedicine, more specialized services and more research funding.

Some people stay sick for a long time after Covid. Others have an illness called ME/CFS. Many cannot leave their homes. The Left wants home visits and video appointments for them. It also wants more research.

The Left wants to keep pharmacies in residential neighborhoods and tie them more closely into health care. It points to the falling number of pharmacies in Berlin and to supply problems with medicines.

Berlin has fewer and fewer pharmacies. The Left wants to keep pharmacies close to where people live. It wants more training places for pharmacy jobs. It also wants to change how pharmacies are paid.

The Left wants to raise the state's investment funding for hospitals and reverse cuts made by the current Senate. At the federal level it wants to move beyond the flat-rate case payment system, and Berlin is to plan hospital services by need rather than revenue.

Hospitals now get money for each treatment. These are called case payments. The Left wants to end this system. Berlin should give hospitals more money for buildings and equipment. The state should plan which hospital offers which care.

The Left wants to expand the public hospital groups Charité and Vivantes and return private hospitals to public ownership when operators give up sites or undercut standards. The public hospitals are to be reorganized so that staff, patient representatives and districts share in decisions.

The Left says hospitals should not make profit for investors. The public hospitals Charité and Vivantes should grow. Some private hospitals should belong to the city again. Staff and patients should have a say in public hospitals.

The Left wants more psychotherapy practices covered by public insurance in Berlin, crisis centers and counseling offices in every district, and stable funding for the crisis service. Psychiatry is to work without violence as far as possible, and mental health is to become a topic in schools and in workplace safety rules.

Many people wait a long time for therapy. The Left wants more therapy places paid by public health insurance. Every district should get a center for mental health crises. Schools should teach about mental health. Psychiatric care should avoid violence as much as possible.

The Left wants higher pay, binding staffing rules and an end to outsourcing in the health professions. It points to staff shortages and heavy workloads, which in its view lead to mistakes and put patients at risk.

Hospitals and practices do not have enough staff. The work is very hard. The Left wants better pay for these jobs. It wants fixed rules on how many staff must be there. Outsourced companies should come back into the hospitals.

The Left wants to introduce a Pflegewohngeld (care housing benefit) through which the state relieves nursing home residents of investment costs. More care facilities are to be publicly run, and at the federal level it seeks lower co-payments and, in the long run, full-coverage care insurance.

A place in a nursing home costs more and more. The Left wants a new care housing benefit. This is money from the state for people in nursing homes. More homes should be publicly owned. Later, insurance should pay all care costs.

The Left wants to expand the Pflegestützpunkte (independent care advice centers) and set up an emergency care hotline. To relieve family caregivers, short-term and day care would be expanded, and care provision would be planned in a binding way at state and district level.

The Left wants more advice on care. There should be more care advice centers. An emergency phone line should help at night and on weekends. People who care for relatives should get more relief.

The Left wants medicine that takes gender differences into account in research, training and treatment. In the platform's view, the health of women and FLINTA* people has been neglected, and women-specific topics receive too little research funding.

The Left wants medicine to pay more attention to women. There should be more research on illnesses that affect women. Doctors and nurses should learn more about this. Pads and tampons should be free in public buildings.

The Left wants heat action plans for the state, the districts and facilities such as hospitals and nursing homes, along with a climate-neutral conversion of health care buildings. The platform cites the health effects of the climate crisis, which hit vulnerable groups hardest.

The Left says the climate crisis makes people sick. So there should be plans against heat. Hospitals and nursing homes should use less energy. They should become climate neutral.

The Left wants to use digital tools for care and health planning while protecting patients' data. Hospitals, medical practices, care facilities and public health offices would work together more closely.

The Left wants more digital technology in health care. Hospitals, doctors and health offices should share data better. Patients' data should stay safe. All health workers should learn to use the technology.

The Left wants a drug policy that does not punish use but reduces health and social risks. At the federal level, the narcotics law would be reformed so that currently banned substances can be supplied legally and on a non-profit basis.

The Left wants to stop punishing drug use. People should be able to get currently banned drugs legally. Nobody should make a profit from this. Help and advice for addiction should grow.

The Left opposes gearing Berlin's health system toward a possible war. Care should be organized according to social criteria and the population's needs, not military standards.

The Left wants no war preparation in hospitals. Berlin hospitals should not take part in war drills. Care should follow what people need. Health workers should serve peace.

The Left wants a dedicated program to bring care facilities back under public ownership and to invest public money in care infrastructure. It also wants better medical care for older people and those needing care, for example through higher pay for house calls.

The Left wants care homes to belong to the city again. The city should put more money into care. There should be more places for day care and short-term care. Family doctors should get more money for home visits. Offices should process requests for help faster.

Citing growing heat stress, the Left calls for more protective services aimed specifically at older people. Public meeting places are to serve as cool spaces, and senior housing and care facilities are to be made ready for heat.

Summers in Berlin often get very hot. This is dangerous for older people. The Left wants cool rooms in the city's meeting places. There should be more drinking water in buildings and in public squares. Neighbors should visit and support older people who live alone.

The Left wants a coordinated plan for psychosocial prevention and better care for children and young people in Berlin. The health system, youth social work, schools and youth welfare services would work together more closely.

Some children and young people are lonely or mentally ill. The Left wants to help them better. Doctors, schools and youth services should work together more. There should be more help by chat and phone.

The Left calls for health care free of discrimination, including free HIV prevention medication (PrEP) for everyone who needs it. Waiting times for treatments for trans people are to be shortened.

The Left wants good health care for queer people. PrEP should be free. PrEP is a medicine that protects against HIV. Trans people should not wait so long for treatment. Doctors should learn more about queer people.

The Left wants Berlin to push at the federal level for a far-reaching ban on advertising for sports betting. It cites the risk of addiction, which it says comes especially from betting apps. In Berlin, prevention is to be stepped up and the appearance of betting shops strictly regulated.

Sports betting can be addictive. The Left wants to ban almost all ads for it. Berlin should push for this across Germany. Betting shops should not invite people to gamble from the outside. Young people should learn more about the dangers.

The Left wants to expand counseling and support for foreign workers, who according to the platform are exploited especially often. Foreign vocational qualifications are to be recognized faster, and refugees are to gain easier access to jobs.

Many workers from abroad are taken advantage of at work. The Left wants more advice services for them. Job qualifications from abroad should be accepted faster. Refugees should be able to work more easily. There should be more language classes alongside work.

The Left wants immigrant and refugee children to be able to attend school from their first day in Berlin. More Willkommensklassen (welcome classes) are to be created for this. The party rejects teaching these children separately inside shared refugee housing.

Some children are new in Berlin. The Left wants them to go to school right away. For this, there should be more welcome classes. These are classes for children who are still learning German. The Left does not want lessons inside refugee housing.

The Left wants refugee children and teenagers to have the same legal standing as other young people. They are to get immediate, low-bureaucracy access to psychosocial help and trauma therapy. The platform argues that help today often arrives only once a crisis has become acute.

The Left wants equal rights for refugee children and teenagers. They should get mental health support quickly. This includes therapy after terrible experiences. There should be enough places to live for refugee children without parents.

The Left wants everyone in Berlin to receive social services, health care, and housing, even without valid papers. A Berlin city ID card would make this possible and turn Berlin into a place of refuge within the Solidarity Cities network.

Some people in Berlin have no valid papers. They cannot get health insurance. The Left wants them to be able to see a doctor and have a place to stay. A Berlin city ID card should make this possible.

The Left wants to enable more naturalizations and end the backlog of pending applications. To do so, the state should use its legal leeway and allow applications to be filed offline as well.

The Left wants more people to get a German passport. Many applications are still waiting. That should stop. People should also be able to apply on paper.

The Left wants to add a fixed quota to the Partizipationsgesetz (participation act) so that people with a migration background are hired and promoted more often in the public sector. The stated reason is that the administration does not reflect Berlin's population.

Few people with a migration background work in Berlin's public offices. The Left wants to change that. There should be a fixed quota. A quota is a required share.

The Left wants to push at the federal level for repealing the Asylbewerberleistungsgesetz (Asylum Seekers' Benefits Act) so that refugees receive the same basic support as everyone else. The payment card is not to be introduced in Berlin, or is to be withdrawn.

Refugees now get less money than other people in need. The Left wants to change that. Everyone should get the same help. The Left does not want the payment card for refugees.

The Left rejects deportations in principle and wants to legalize people without secure status through a cutoff-date rule. Berlin is to use all of its own legal options for this, including temporary deportation freezes.

The Left does not want deportations. People without secure status should be allowed to stay. A new federal law should make this possible. Berlin should pause deportations for a time.

The Left wants Berlin to take in people from war and crisis regions through its own admission programs, above all especially vulnerable people and relatives of Berliners. This is meant to live up to the city's claim to be a "safe harbor."

Berlin should take in people from war zones. The city should have its own programs for this. Relatives of Berliners should be able to come. People in great danger should also get in safely.

The Left wants to take the State Office for Immigration out from under the supervision of the interior department. In the platform's view, the current setup encourages a security-focused view of flight and migration, which should be replaced by a humanitarian and social-policy approach.

The immigration office now belongs to the interior department. That department mainly deals with security. The Left wants to change this. The office should focus more on help and social needs.

The Left wants refugees to be able to work and take up vocational training regardless of their residence status. The Ausbildungsduldung (toleration during training) is to be extended to further activities so that people have time to choose a career.

Refugees should be allowed to work and train for a job. Their residence status should not matter. A language course or internship should also protect them from deportation. There should be more free language courses.

The Left wants refugees to receive the same medical care as everyone else in Berlin and their children to attend regular schools. Especially vulnerable people are to be identified and supported from the start.

Refugees should be able to see a doctor like everyone else. Their children should go to normal schools. The Left rejects separate schools only for refugees. People at special risk should get help right away.

The Left wants to found a state enterprise for social housing and write minimum standards for shelters for refugees and homeless people into law. The obligation to live in a shelter during the asylum procedure is to be dropped.

A new city-owned operator should create shelters. A law should say how good shelters must be at least. Every district should provide places. Asylum seekers should no longer have to live in a shelter.

The Left wants shelters for refugees and homeless people to be awarded mainly on quality and to operators that do not work for profit. In the long run, a public social enterprise is to bring accommodation under municipal control. The federal government is to share the costs through a per-person flat payment.

The Left wants better shelters for refugees and homeless people. The operators should not be out to make a profit. Later the city should run the shelters itself. The federal government should pay money for each person.

The Left bases its disability policy on the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. People with disabilities are to take a greater part in politics, personal assistance is to be secured, and the special transport service is to be usable without a co-payment.

People with disabilities should decide about their own lives. They should have more say in politics. Meetings should be accessible to everyone. Rides with the special transport service should no longer cost anything.

The Left wants to launch a citywide initiative across all departments for an inclusive labor market. Berlin's administration is to train and employ considerably more people with disabilities, and state-owned companies are to meet the statutory employment quota in full.

The Left wants more jobs for people with disabilities. Berlin's public offices should hire and train more of them. Office buildings should be free of barriers. The state's companies should meet the required quota.

The Left wants to better protect people with disabilities living in shared residential settings from violence. To that end, the legal rules are to be tightened and residents involved in shaping the protective measures.

Some people with disabilities live together in group homes. The Left wants to protect them better from violence. The law should set clear rules for this. The residents should have a say.

The Left wants to remove abortion from the criminal code and plans to launch an initiative in the Bundesrat to do so. The platform argues that deciding over one's own body is a fundamental right.

The Left wants to end Section 218. This law makes abortion a crime. The required counseling should also end. Health insurers should pay the costs.

The Left wants to improve medical care for trans people in Berlin and strengthen specialized services. The platform points to long waiting times, bureaucratic procedures and a lack of specialized care.

The Left wants better health care for trans people. There should be more therapy places. Hormones should be easier to get. Health insurers should cover costs more easily.

The Left opposes discrimination based on age and wants to achieve an amendment to the Grundgesetz (Germany's constitution) at the federal level. It explicitly includes discrimination against young people.

No one should be treated worse because of their age. This applies to old and young people. The Left wants to write this into the Grundgesetz. The Grundgesetz is Germany's constitution.

The Left wants to create an independent office where students and parents can turn in cases of discrimination and bullying. It would have the right to inspect files and to intervene. The party aims to counter racism, antisemitism, sexism, hostility toward queer people and other forms of disadvantage in schools.

The Left wants a new office for complaints. Children and parents can contact it. For example, when there is bullying or unfair treatment. The office should be independent of the school. It may look at files and step in.

The Left wants to make youth work a distinct focus of a citywide anti-discrimination strategy and support anti-racist, feminist and queer projects in every district. Youth facilities would be equipped so that young people with disabilities can take part as a matter of course. To counter far-right recruiting among young people, street social work and exit programs would be expanded.

The Left wants youth work to be a safe place for everyone. Every district should have projects against racism. There should also be projects for women and queer people. Young people with disabilities should be able to join in everywhere. The party wants to do more against far-right groups that recruit young people.

The Left wants a cross-departmental Senate strategy against unequal pay between women and men. Occupations with a high share of women are to be upgraded financially and structurally, and more women are to reach skilled and leadership positions and enter male-dominated sectors.

The Left wants equal pay for women and men. Jobs done mostly by women should pay better. These include nursing, cleaning and childcare. More women should become bosses. Women should also get into technical jobs more easily.

The Left wants to secure, expand and better fund women's shelters, girls' clubs, women's centers and counseling services for the long term. Staff there should be paid according to collective agreements and their qualifications.

The Left wants to protect women's shelters and advice centers for women. There should be more of them. The city should give more money for this. Staff there should get pay set by union agreements.

The Left wants to expand protection against gender-based violence by implementing the Gewalthilfegesetz (federal violence assistance act) and the Istanbul Convention across all Senate departments. A state coordination office would steer the work, and a Bundesrat initiative would extend the right to protection to additional groups.

The Left wants to protect women and others better from violence. There is a treaty for this called the Istanbul Convention. Many countries signed it to stop violence against women. Berlin should follow this treaty everywhere. A new office should plan this for all of Berlin.

The Left wants to revise Berlin's rules on the protection of people in prostitution together with sex workers. Sex work should be neither criminalized nor stigmatized, and the party rejects restricted zones where it is banned.

The Left wants to change the rules for sex work in Berlin. Sex workers should have a say in this. No one should punish them or treat them badly. The Left does not want restricted zones. These are areas where sex work is banned.

The Left wants to review and further develop Berlin's state initiative for gender and sexual diversity (IGSV) and bring it back into parliament. Queer policy should focus more on social issues because, according to the program, queer people are especially often poor. Lesbian visibility is to be specifically promoted.

The Left wants to improve policy for queer people in Berlin. Queer means, for example, lesbian, gay or trans. Many queer people have little money. So there should be special help for them. Lesbians should become more visible in the city.

The Left wants to better protect queer people from housing discrimination and homelessness and to support queer housing projects. Queer bars, clubs and centers would be shielded from displacement as "cultural protection zones" under federal law.

Many queer people have a hard time finding a home. The Left wants to help them. Housing projects for queer people should get money and land. Queer bars and clubs should get special protection. Then they will not have to close so easily.

The Left wants to add sexual identity to the equality article of the Basic Law and change parentage law so that rainbow families are treated equally. The Selbstbestimmungsgesetz (Self-Determination Act) is to be developed further and defended against repeal.

The Left wants equal rights for queer people. The constitution should protect them by name. Families with two mothers or two fathers should have the same rights. The Self-Determination Act should stay and get better. This law makes it easier to change your legal gender.

The Left wants to counter hate violence against queer people mainly through independent reporting offices, victim counseling and mandatory training in public agencies, since in its view more police does not mean more safety for everyone. Schools would get designated staff for diversity and binding guidelines, and Pride (CSD) events would be protected.

Queer people face more and more violence. The Left wants more reporting offices and advice for victims. They should get help even without going to the police. Every school should have a trained person for diversity. Queer marches like Pride should be safe.

The Left wants to close the gender pay gap in the cultural sector and develop a long-term plan to do so. Cultural workers with care responsibilities get particular attention. Funding for FLINTA* people in culture is to be expanded.

Women in culture earn much less than men. The Left wants to change that. It wants to make a plan for this. Artists who care for children or relatives should get help. Women and queer people should get more funding.

The Left wants to step up action against racism and antisemitism, especially where they are embedded in structures and institutions. This work would be funded permanently, and the public sector would be trained and organized accordingly.

The Left wants to do more against racism and hatred of Jews. All parts of the Senate should take part. There should be lasting money and staff for this. City employees should get training.

The Left wants better research on discrimination in Berlin and permanent funding for the existing specialist offices. The data is meant to inform counter-strategies. Racism, antisemitism and Berlin's colonial legacy are also to become a fixed part of teacher training.

The Left wants to know more about discrimination in Berlin. There should be studies on it. Advice centers against discrimination should get lasting funding. Teachers should learn more about racism and antisemitism.

The Left wants to review Berlin's state anti-discrimination act (Landesantidiskriminierungsgesetz), add new protected grounds and strengthen the ombuds office. At the federal level it seeks a comprehensive reform of the General Equal Treatment Act (AGG) via the Bundesrat. It opposes racial profiling.

Berlin has a law against discrimination by public offices. The Left wants to widen this law. It should list more reasons for unfair treatment. The complaints office should get more staff and more rights. Police should not stop people because of how they look.

The Left wants more prevention and education against antisemitism in all areas of society and in state institutions. Recognized, qualified organizations are to be funded permanently rather than through short project terms. The program cites the rise in antisemitic crimes as the reason.

There are more crimes against Jewish people. The Left wants more education to stop this. Advice centers and projects should get lasting funding. Research on antisemitism should get money too.

The Left wants to develop a state program that promotes the participation of Roma and combats antigypsyism. The program points to discrimination and attacks, especially in public offices and in housing and employment.

Sinti and Roma are often treated unfairly in Berlin. The Left wants a state program against this. The contact person for this issue should be strengthened. One instruction for job centers should be dropped, because the party says it treats Roma unfairly.

The Left wants targeted measures against anti-Muslim, anti-Black, anti-Asian, anti-Slavic, anti-Palestinian and anti-Kurdish racism. These include a Senate strategy against anti-Muslim racism, a review of the police and its databases, and more colonial and migration history in teaching.

The Left wants to fight different kinds of racism. The Berlin government should make a plan against racism toward Muslims. The police and its data files should be checked. Schools should teach more about colonial history.

The Left wants all religious and worldview communities in Berlin to be treated equally and considers preferential treatment of the Christian churches unjustifiable. Plans include religiously neutral pastoral care for non-religious people and more Muslim pastoral care. The party opposes religious fundamentalism.

Berlin has many religions and many people without a religion. The Left wants to treat them all the same. Christian churches should not get special benefits. People without a religion should also get pastoral care. Pastoral care means someone listens and helps in hard times.

The Left wants to write gender equality into sports law and introduce a binding quota that reserves funding and training time for girls and FLINTA* teams. Violence-protection plans would become a condition for public money, and an independent complaints office would track discrimination in sports.

The Left wants more equality in sports. Girls and FLINTA* teams should get a fixed share of the money. FLINTA* means women, lesbians, and inter, non-binary, trans and agender people. Clubs need a plan to protect people from violence. A new office should take complaints about discrimination.

The Left wants to secure access to sports for people with disabilities through barrier-free facilities, assistance and a say in decisions. The Jahn-Sportpark would be developed as an inclusive grassroots sports complex, with a cheaper stadium than currently planned.

People with disabilities should be able to do sports everywhere. Each district should get at least one sports facility without barriers. There should be money for assistance and sign language. The Jahn-Sportpark should become a place for everyone.

The Left wants to adapt Berlin to the effects of the climate crisis by investing in public infrastructure, public transit, and walking and cycling. The BaumEntscheid (tree referendum) is to be implemented. At the same time, electricity, heat, and water should be affordable for everyone.

The Left wants to prepare Berlin for hot summers. There should be more parks and clean air. The city should spend money on buses, trains, sidewalks, and bike paths. The tree referendum should be carried out. Electricity, heat, and water should be affordable for everyone.

The Left wants a binding roadmap for energy retrofits of municipal housing, backed by significantly more state equity. The modernization surcharge, which lets landlords pass costs on to rents, would be eliminated. Retrofits are meant to protect tenants from rising costs and benefit the climate.

The Left wants to renovate city-owned apartments so they use less energy. There should be a fixed plan for this. The state should give more money. Landlords should no longer add the costs to the rent.

The Left wants construction waste recycled and building components reused, including through a municipal depot for used building materials. Under a revised building code, concrete would as far as possible be used only where it is strictly required; more building would be done with renewable materials instead.

The Left wants less waste in construction. Old building parts should be used again. The city should get a depot for used building materials. The Left says concrete harms the climate. It should be used only where it is required. Wood and similar materials should get support.

The Left wants to use planning law and the state building code to advance climate protection and climate adaptation. Solar installations and green facades are to become easier, and new buildings are to reuse graywater and include a minimum share of green space. No new building rights are to be granted for developments of single-family or two-family houses.

The Left wants to change Berlin's building rules. This should help the climate. Solar panels on roofs and walls should be easier to install. New buildings should reuse lightly used water. New buildings should always come with green space. There should be no new areas of single-family houses.

The Left wants Berlin to be climate neutral by 2040 at the latest and to stay within its CO2 budget. Climate protection would be written into the state constitution as a goal. A climate proviso would mean that for government and legislative proposals, the more climate-friendly option is chosen in case of doubt.

The Left wants Berlin to be climate neutral by 2040 at the latest. That means the city no longer harms the climate. Climate protection should be in Berlin's constitution. For new laws, the more climate-friendly choice should come first.

The Left calls for large public investments in public transit, electric buses, district heating, the power grid and socially fair building renovation. Residents would take part in local climate measures through participation formats. The party wants closer cooperation with the neighboring state of Brandenburg on wind and solar power.

The Left wants to spend a lot of money on climate protection. The money should go to buses, trains, district heating and the power grid. Residents should have a say in local climate action. Berlin should work more closely with Brandenburg.

The Left wants at least 2 percent of buildings to undergo energy renovation each year, starting with the worst performers. Grants would be designed so that rent including heating does not rise afterward and no one is displaced. Coal, oil and gas heating systems would be replaced with climate-friendly ones as quickly as possible.

The Left wants to renovate more buildings so they use less energy. At least 2 percent of buildings should be done each year. Rent with heating costs should not go up afterward. Old coal, oil and gas heaters should be replaced quickly.

The Left wants to implement municipal heat planning and the roadmap for fossil-free district heating, and to expand both district and local heating networks. From 2027, it would be determined where connection to a heating network will be possible. Heat is to be renewable, reliable and affordable.

The Left wants more district heating and local heating in Berlin. This heat comes into homes through pipes. From 2027, it should be clear where people can connect. A heat agency should advise people.

The Left wants heat to come from a broad range of renewable sources and waste heat, such as geothermal energy, large heat pumps and wastewater. Burning wood and waste would play only a narrowly limited role because the party does not consider it climate neutral.

The Left wants heat from clean sources. These include heat from the ground, large heat pumps and heat from wastewater. Wood and trash should only be burned a little. New neighborhoods should be heated in a climate-neutral way.

The Left wants solar panels on every suitable roof of public buildings by 2030 at the latest and more wind power, with residents and districts involved. It also wants the power grid better protected against outages following the attacks on it.

The Left wants more power from sun and wind. By 2030, public buildings should have solar panels on their roofs. Wind turbines should be built too. The power grid should become safer.

The Left wants to continue existing measures against energy poverty and against electricity and gas shutoffs, and to expand counseling. Through the Bundesrat, Berlin should push for socially tiered electricity prices and a ban on energy shutoffs.

Some people cannot pay for power and gas. The Left wants to help them. Nobody should have their power cut off. A basic amount of power should be cheap for everyone.

The Left wants to limit rising district heating costs so that heat stays affordable and the heating transition is accepted. It plans investment support, transparency requirements, price controls, and a price ceiling.

District heating is getting more expensive. The Left wants to limit the prices. Suppliers should show how prices are set. The state should check the prices.

The Left wants to remunicipalize or socialize the gas utility GASAG, provided the price is appropriate. Publicly owned energy companies would be reorganized and used to deliver a climate-neutral and socially fair energy supply.

The Left wants the state of Berlin to buy the gas company GASAG. But the price must be fair. The Berlin municipal utility should become its own company. Profits should go into grids and clean energy.

The Left wants Berlin to push in the Bundesrat for more federal climate action and funding and to have climate protection written into the Basic Law as a joint federal-state task. It also wants to abolish the modernization surcharge, which lets landlords pass renovation costs on to rent.

The Left wants more climate action from the federal government. Climate protection should be in the constitution. Landlords should no longer add renovation costs to the rent. People with little money should get more support.

The Left wants to raise the number of street trees in Berlin to one million by 2040 and introduce a heat protection plan with binding measures. It cites more hot days and drought, which hit disadvantaged groups especially hard.

Berlin is getting hotter and drier. The Left wants one million street trees by 2040. There should be a fixed plan to protect people from heat. Every neighborhood should have cool rooms.

The Left wants to fundamentally revise the 1994 land-use plan in the next legislative term with broad public participation, aligning it with climate protection, climate adaptation and securing housing. From 2030 at the latest, no additional land on balance would be paved over. Tempelhofer Feld would be designated as green space.

Berlin has a plan for how its land is used. It dates from 1994. The Left wants to redo it. People should have a say. From 2030, Berlin should not pave over any more land overall. Tempelhofer Feld should stay a green space.

The Left wants to keep Tempelhofer Feld entirely free of buildings and preserve the law passed by referendum. It rejects construction and privatization. It bases this on the field's importance for recreation, the urban climate, and nature.

Tempelhofer Feld is a large open space in Berlin. The Left wants no building there. Berliners decided this in a public vote. That law should stay. The field is good for relaxing, for the air, and for animals and plants.

The Left wants a citywide open-space strategy for Berlin so that parks, playgrounds and good environmental quality are within reach regardless of income. Socially disadvantaged areas are to benefit most, because the platform says environmental burdens are often higher there.

The Left wants more parks and playgrounds close to homes. Everyone should be able to use them, rich or poor. Poorer neighborhoods should get better green space first. There should be one plan for the whole city.

The Left wants to generally permit swimming in the Spree and Havel rivers and make the banks of Berlin's waters publicly accessible. The platform provides for land purchases and, if necessary, expropriations to achieve this.

The Left wants people to be allowed to swim in the Spree and the Havel. The riverbanks should be open to everyone. Berlin should buy land for this. If needed, the city should also take land from owners by law.

The Left wants to protect parks, forests, cemeteries, allotment gardens, and bodies of water from development and create additional natural areas. Especially in disadvantaged neighborhoods, noise, poor air, and heat would be reduced and more greenery added.

The Left wants to protect parks, forests, and garden plots. Nobody should be allowed to build there. The city should have more nature. Poorer neighborhoods in particular should get more green space.

The Left regards soil as a common good and wants to ensure that, on balance, no additional land is sealed from 2030 on. Any new sealing would have to be offset by unsealing an equal area within Berlin.

Sealed means the ground is covered with concrete or asphalt. The Left wants to balance this out by 2030. Anyone who covers ground must uncover the same amount elsewhere in Berlin. Bogs should become wet again.

The Left wants to secure the quality of Berlin's water for the long term and give drinking water supply priority in all administrative decisions. Private wells and commercial water extraction would have to be reported, and companies would pay for surface water they withdraw.

The Left wants to protect Berlin's drinking water. Drinking water should always come first. People who have a well should report it. Companies should pay for water from rivers and lakes.

The Left wants to rebuild Berlin on the sponge city principle, where rainwater seeps away and is stored on site instead of flowing into the sewers. This is also meant to keep wastewater out of the Spree and other waters.

A sponge city stores rain like a sponge. The water should soak into the ground. Then less dirty water flows into the Spree river. The Left wants to rebuild Berlin this way.

The Left wants to protect allotment gardens and community gardens by law and to preserve and expand them permanently through land-use planning. The platform argues that these gardens are places for people of all generations to meet and learn and that they contribute to local food production.

The Left wants to protect small garden plots in Berlin. A law should do this. Community gardens should stay too. There should even be more of them.

The Left wants to implement the clean air plan immediately and keep it up to date. Air pollution and traffic noise are to be reduced through less car traffic, lower speeds and more trees, among other things; at BER airport the night flight ban is to be extended.

The Left wants cleaner air and less noise in Berlin. Fewer cars should be on the road. Cars should also drive more slowly. At BER airport, planes should stay on the ground longer at night. The party also wants a ban on fireworks.

The Left wants to expand the circular economy in Berlin, following the order of prevent, reuse, recycle, dispose. Repair, lending, secondhand goods and reusable packaging are to be promoted, recycling rates raised and organic waste processing expanded.

The Left wants less trash in Berlin. Broken things should be repaired more often. The city will keep paying part of the cost. Every district should get a store for used goods. Restaurants should use more reusable packaging.

To curb illegal dumping, the Left wants to expand waste disposal services and bring them closer to where people live. In the platform's view, disposal must not depend on income; the city sanitation company BSR is to get more staff.

The Left wants a cleaner city. There should be more places to drop off trash. Bulky waste means big items like old furniture. Each household should get two free pickups a year. The city sanitation company should get more workers.

The Left wants to expand environmental education for children, young people and adults. The platform sees protecting the climate and the environment as a task that cuts across every area of city life.

The Left wants more environmental education. Children should learn more about climate and nature in daycare and school. Adults should get programs too. Schoolyards should become greener. Students should have a say in this.

The Left wants to draw up a plan to end animal testing and to fund alternative methods. It also wants to reinstate a full-time state animal welfare commissioner and give financial support to the animal shelter and the pet food bank.

The Left wants to end animal testing in Berlin. There should be a plan with fixed dates. Other research methods should get funding. Berlin should again have an animal welfare officer. The animal shelter should get enough money.

The Left wants to abolish the list of dog breeds classed as dangerous and instead check whether owners are fit to keep dogs. Hunting law is to be refocused on animal and nature protection, and the platform plans separate protection and management schemes for pigeons, rats and birds in the city.

The Left wants to end the breed list for dogs. This list names dog breeds seen as dangerous. Instead, owners should show they can keep a dog. Hunting foxes and martens should stop. Pigeons should get supervised lofts.

The Left wants to give buses, trains, cycling and walking more space and priority. By 2035, at least 90 percent of trips within Berlin are to be made by these modes. According to the platform, mobility should not depend on where people live, whether they own a car, their health or their income.

The Left wants to strengthen buses, trains, bikes and sidewalks. They should get more space. By 2035, people should make almost all trips without a car. Everyone should be able to get around cheaply.

The Left wants to make public transit cheaper: the social ticket is to cost 9 euros again, alongside discounted Deutschlandticket passes for several groups. The platform argues that mobility regardless of income is a precondition for taking part in society.

The Left wants to make buses and trains cheaper. The social ticket should cost 9 euros again. Students and older people should get a cheaper Deutschlandticket. People caught without a ticket should no longer be reported to the police.

The Left wants to open up new sources of funding for public transit, including a transit levy on tourists. In the long term, the fare system is to be replaced by solidarity-based contributions so that buses and trains can be used without a ticket.

The Left wants to find new money for buses and trains. Tourists should pay a fee. Later, everyone should pay a contribution. Then nobody would need a ticket anymore.

The Left wants to extend the tram network, especially into the western part of Berlin, and restart planning that was halted. On existing lines, trams are to run more often and get priority at traffic lights.

The Left wants to build more tram lines. Trams should also run in the west of Berlin. Plans that were stopped should continue. Trams should come more often.

For the U-Bahn (subway), the Left wants to invest first in renovating and technically modernizing the existing network, because it sees a large repair backlog. Trains are to run more often; it considers new lines useful mainly where there are gaps in the network.

The Left wants to repair and modernize the subway first. Trains should come more often. New lines should be built mainly where the network has gaps.

The Left wants to switch the buses of BVG (Berlin's transit operator) to electric power by 2035 at the latest and to speed up and expand bus service. Canceled trips are to return, and after that a bus is to run at least every ten minutes across Berlin.

The Left wants all BVG buses to be electric by 2035. Buses should get their own lanes and be faster. Canceled trips should come back. Later, a bus should come at least every ten minutes everywhere.

The Left wants to improve working conditions at Berlin's public transit operator BVG so that staff stay for the long term. More staff at stations is also meant to make riders feel safer.

The Left wants better jobs at BVG. BVG runs buses, subways and trams in Berlin. Workers should stay there for a long time. There should be more staff at stations. This should help riders feel safer.

The Left wants to transfer Berlin's S-Bahn commuter rail into public ownership by the states. This is meant to secure investment, keep profits in the city, and allow direct contract awards instead of lengthy tenders. The network is also to grow with more frequent service and new lines.

Today the S-Bahn belongs to Deutsche Bahn. The Left wants the states to own it. Then the money stays in Berlin, the party says. Trains should run more often. There should be new lines and new stations.

The Left wants to expand regional and S-Bahn rail service into Brandenburg so that commuters switch from cars to public transit. In addition, bike highways and transfer facilities are to be developed jointly with Brandenburg.

Many people drive to work in Berlin. The Left wants more trains to the area around Berlin. Then more people can take the train. There should also be fast bike routes to Brandenburg. Berlin and Brandenburg should plan this together.

The Left wants to base road safety policy on the goal that no one is killed or seriously injured in traffic. To get there, it relies on 30 km/h as the default urban speed limit, less car traffic, and more enforcement. SUVs are to face higher parking fees, and at the federal level the party wants to end new SUV registrations.

The Left wants fewer crashes in Berlin. No one should die in traffic. Cars should mostly drive only 30 km/h in the city. There should be more speed cameras. Parking should cost more for big cars.

The Left wants everyone to be able to use streets, buses and trains without obstacles. Stops and stations are to be made accessible, and support services for people with limited mobility are to be secured permanently.

Everyone should be able to get around the city well. This includes people in wheelchairs. Stops and stations should have no barriers. Elevators should work better. There should be more taxis for wheelchairs.

The Left wants to keep building safe bike lanes and create a continuous network based on the existing bike network plan. The program sees cycling as an affordable way to get around that supports social participation.

The Left wants to build more safe bike lanes. The bike lanes should connect everywhere. Children and older people should be able to ride safely too. There should be more bike parking at stations. Rental bikes should be free for half an hour.

The Left wants to give pedestrians more room by reducing traffic lanes and parking spaces for cars. Sidewalks are to be maintained, crossings expanded, and the pedestrian traffic plan adopted.

The Left wants more space for people on foot. Cars should get less space for this. Sidewalks should be in good shape and clear. There should be more crosswalks. The city should put up 1,200 new benches.

The Left wants to greatly reduce car traffic in Berlin and dedicate streets on a large scale to walking and cycling. The program cites climate and heat protection, road safety, quality of life, and economic reasons. Necessary trips such as deliveries, emergency services and buses are to get more room.

The Left wants far fewer cars in Berlin. Many streets should be for walking and biking. Cars should no longer drive through residential areas. Ambulances and garbage trucks can still drive there. Wrong parking should be checked more strictly.

The Left wants to strengthen Berlin's taxi trade and end what it sees as preferential treatment of ride-hailing platforms such as Uber. Rental-car-with-driver companies are to face tighter checks and have to charge minimum prices.

The Left wants to help taxis in Berlin. Companies like Uber should get stricter rules. Their rides should have a minimum price. The city should check these companies more often. At night there should be a taxi service for women.

The Left wants to build a high-capacity public network of charging stations for electric cars. The state-owned utility (Stadtwerk) is to be in charge. The platform argues that the future of motor traffic is electric.

The Left wants more public charging stations for electric cars. The utility owned by the state of Berlin should build them. Renters without their own parking spot should be able to charge there too.

The Left rejects new highways in Berlin and wants the A100 to end at Treptower Park. The planned 17th construction section is to be removed from planning documents. Existing highways are to get more noise protection.

The Left does not want new highways in Berlin. The A100 highway should end at Treptower Park. The next planned section should not be built. Existing highways should get more protection from noise.

The Left wants road policy to focus on maintenance and repair, especially of bridges. Construction sites are to be better coordinated and approved faster through a new staff unit in the Senate and digital tools.

The Left mainly wants to repair existing roads and bridges. Construction sites should be planned better. A new office in the Senate should take care of this. Permits should come faster.

The Left wants providers of rental scooters and similar vehicles to bear more of the costs through higher fees and to face stricter requirements. At the same time, sharing services are to be available across the whole city and linked to public transit.

Companies rent out e-scooters and other vehicles in Berlin. The Left wants these companies to pay higher fees. The vehicles should only be parked in set areas. The services should be available all over the city, also in the outer districts.

The Left wants more delivery and freight traffic to run on rail, waterways and public transit infrastructure, reducing truck trips. Electric delivery vehicles, cargo bikes, micro-depots and delivery zones are to be promoted. Inner-city logistics centers are to be run by a state-owned company.

The Left wants fewer trucks on Berlin's streets. Goods should come by train or ship more often. There should be shared depots and parcel lockers for packages. Every street should have parking zones for tradespeople and delivery services.

The Left wants aviation to become climate-neutral and advocates bans on short-haul flights and on private and business flights at BER airport. The night flight ban is to cover more hours. The party rejects privatizing the airport company FBB.

The Left wants fewer flights. Short flights should be banned if the train takes six hours or less. No planes should fly at night between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. BER airport should not be sold to private companies.

The Left wants boats in Berlin to run on electricity as far as possible and seeks stricter emissions rules. Checks on the waterways are to be stepped up. The cable car at the "Gärten der Welt" park is to stay and become part of public transit.

The Left wants boats in Berlin to run on electricity. There should be stricter rules for exhaust from boats. The police should do more checks on the water. The cable car at the "Gärten der Welt" park should stay and be part of public transit.

The Left wants streets, transit stops, and neighborhoods designed so that older people can move around safely and reach everything they need on foot. It invokes the idea of the 15-minute city and opposes further loss of local shops and services. Older people should also be able to keep their homes and stay in their familiar surroundings.

The Left wants to make the city better for older people. There should be more traffic lights, and they should stay green longer. Every transit stop should have a roof and seats. Shops and doctors should be within walking distance. There should be free public toilets.

The Left wants to create good conditions for startups and digital companies and to give special support to artificial intelligence applications. The discontinued funding for small businesses' digitalization projects should return, and alternative brokerage platforms owned by their workers should be built.

The Left wants to support young digital companies in Berlin. Artificial intelligence should also get funding. Small businesses should again get money for digital projects. Drivers should be able to build their own platforms. These are online services that pass on jobs.

The Left regards digital participation as a basic right and part of public services. Services in administration, education, culture and social support are to remain available both online and in person. Places that help people get into the digital world are to receive lasting funding.

Everyone should be able to use the internet. No one should be left out for lack of money, devices or knowledge. Public offices should be reachable online and in person. Poor children and poor older people should get special help.

The Left wants to protect digital spaces for young people and relies on building skills rather than strict bans. Every district would have a well-equipped media literacy center. In the party's view, it is the platforms that should be controlled, not children and teenagers.

The Left does not want to ban social media for young people. Young people should learn to handle digital media well. Every district should have a center for this. The party wants to control the platforms, not the children.

The Left wants digital government to be built around protecting personal data and to become less dependent on individual tech corporations. Government websites should do without non-essential tracking, and the state data protection commissioner should get more powers.

The Left wants to protect people's data better. Government websites should not track what users do. Berlin should not depend on a few big tech companies. The data protection commissioner should be able to check and give orders.

The Left wants Berlin's government IT to be modular, openly documented and based on open source. Software built with public money should be available as open source code. According to the platform, this is meant to reduce dependence on individual vendors.

The Left wants to rebuild the computer systems of Berlin's public offices. Software should be open. That means everyone can see and reuse the code. Berlin should buy software together with other German states. This should make Berlin less dependent on single companies.

The Left wants to expand open wireless networks and free public Wi-Fi in Berlin and secure them for the long term. The party regards digital infrastructure as an essential public service that should not be left to commercial providers.

The Left wants more open wireless networks in Berlin. The city's free Wi-Fi should get better and stay. The party says internet technology is a basic public service. Companies should not run it alone.

The Left wants public services to remain accessible without digital tools. Digital government services should be accessible and reliable, and more easy-to-use internet access points should be created in public spaces.

No one should have to use the internet to reach a public office. There should still be ways without a computer. Government websites should work well for everyone. Libraries should help people with this. There should be more places with free Wi-Fi.

The Left wants to require large platforms such as Airbnb, Booking or Freenow to provide data access and transparency. In addition, a 20 million euro fund is to support public-interest platform projects, and the taxi trade is to become part of public transit.

The Left wants stricter rules for big online platforms like Airbnb. These companies should show the city their data. Berlin should give 20 million euros to other platforms. These should serve the public good. Taxis should become part of public transit.

The Left wants to measure and reduce the energy and resource use of digital technology. Ecological standards such as the Blue Angel label for software and data centers are to be mandatory in government purchasing, and repair services are to receive funding.

Computers and data centers use a lot of electricity. The Left wants to measure this use and make it public. The government should consider the environment when it buys technology. Devices should last longer. So the Left wants to fund repair shops and repair cafés.

The Left wants AI in government to be used only in transparent, controllable and labeled ways. It rejects AI for remote biometric identification and for expanding state surveillance, as well as state cyber counterattacks.

The Left wants clear rules for artificial intelligence, or AI. People should be able to tell when a text comes from AI. The state should not use AI to watch people. For example, it should not recognize faces from a distance. In public offices, people should always be able to talk to a real person.

The Left wants to digitalize the Berlin administration's internal processes and its services for residents more quickly. According to the platform, this would ease the workload of staff and reduce the effort required of residents.

The Left wants Berlin's offices to go digital faster. People should be able to do more online. This should save work. The 15 most-booked services come first.

The Left wants to prevent AI systems from perpetuating or worsening discrimination. Anyone affected by an automated decision should be able to have it reviewed by a human and to object to it.

Computer programs with artificial intelligence sometimes make decisions about people. The Left wants to make sure nobody is treated unfairly. People should be able to ask for a human to check the decision. They should also be able to object.

The Left wants to strengthen Berlin's Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information. She is to be able to issue binding orders to public authorities and enforce them. She is also to receive more funding.

The Left wants to strengthen Berlin's data protection commissioner. She should be able to give orders to public offices. The offices then have to follow them. She should also get more money.

The Left wants to end restrictions on freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. In the program's view, these rights have been curtailed in recent years by bans on demonstrations, police conduct, and political influence on art and culture.

The Left wants to protect free speech. The right to demonstrate should also be protected. The Left says these rights were limited in recent years. That should stop. No one should be afraid to say what they think.

The Left wants to create a competence center against financial and white-collar crime in which prosecutors, police, customs and tax investigators work together. The program justifies this with the high annual losses the state suffers from money laundering, undeclared work and schemes such as cum-ex.

Berlin loses a lot of money to money laundering, undeclared work and tax fraud. The Left wants to set up a new center against this. Prosecutors, police, customs and tax investigators work together there. They sit in one building and use the same technology.

The Left wants to set up technical competence centers that help counseling services, women's shelters and private individuals in cases of digital violence. Police and the justice system are to receive mandatory training. The party calls for strict laws against sexualized deepfakes made without consent.

Digital violence is violence through phones and the internet. The Left wants to build centers with tech experts. They help counseling services and women's shelters. Police and courts should have to take training. Fake sexual images of people should be strictly banned.

The Left wants to end what it sees as the costly build-up of the police and redirect money to social work, crisis services and prevention. It wants to examine bringing police staffing in line with that of other city-states. According to the platform, safety comes mainly from tackling social causes.

The Left wants to spend less money on the police. The money should go to social work and crisis help. The party says poverty and hardship lead to crime. So help should start there. The fence around Görlitzer Park should go.

The Left wants to strengthen the state program against radicalization, arguing that hate violence in Berlin is rising. The focus is to be on far-right and neo-Nazi structures. Those affected are to get more support and easier access to financial help.

There is more hate violence in Berlin. The Left wants to do more against it. It wants to look mainly at far-right groups and neo-Nazis. Victims should get money and help more quickly.

The Left wants to give the Police and Citizens' Commissioner more staff and investigative powers of his own. Members of the public are to be allowed to film police operations and to demand that a bodycam be switched on. This is meant to increase democratic oversight of the police.

The Left wants more checks on the police. The police ombudsman should get more rights and more staff. Everyone should be allowed to film police operations. People should also be able to demand that officers turn on their body camera.

The Left wants to scrap the designation of certain areas as "crime-burdened places" as well as weapons-ban zones. In the party's view, the special police powers that apply there enable discriminatory checks. Police are to issue a written receipt for every check in the future.

In some places in Berlin, police can check people without a reason. The Left wants to end these special rules. It says police there often check people because of how they look. Police should hand out a note stating the reason for every check.

The Left wants to curb the surveillance powers of the police and the Verfassungsschutz (domestic intelligence service) and will not support new ones. It rejects state spyware, biometric matching against publicly available data and AI analysis software such as Palantir's. Data protection oversight of police data is to be strengthened.

The Left wants less surveillance by police and the domestic intelligence service. Police should not use spy software on phones and computers. They should not match faces with pictures from the internet either. People should find out more easily what data the police hold on them.

The Left wants to allow tasers only for special police units. Instead, multi-professional teams outside the police are to help people in acute mental health crises. The central detention facility is to be modernized.

Tasers are devices that give electric shocks. The Left wants only special police units to use them. People in a mental health crisis should get help from separate teams. These teams are not part of the police.

The Left rejects the latest reform of Berlin's police law (ASOG) because it permits biometric and AI-assisted surveillance. It wants to fight the reform by legal and political means and revise the entire law. It also opposes large-scale business inspections targeting migrant-run shops.

Berlin changed its police law. The police can now watch people more, also with computer programs. The Left is against this. It wants to rewrite the law. Human dignity should come first.

The Left wants to improve working conditions for emergency personnel so that the state of Berlin is an attractive employer. Overtime is to be clearly limited, psychological support guaranteed, and buildings renovated faster.

Police and firefighters should get better working conditions. There should be less overtime. Staff should get help for their mental health. Buildings should be repaired faster.

The Left wants higher-grade police officers to continue being trained at the Berlin School of Economics and Law (HWR). It rejects plans to move this training entirely to a police academy supervised by the interior administration.

Many police officers in Berlin study at a university. The Left wants to keep it that way. Some want to move the training to a police academy. The Left is against this.

The Left wants to protect freedom of assembly more strongly against state restrictions and improve Berlin's Freedom of Assembly Act. The ban on face coverings and so-called protective gear at demonstrations is to be dropped entirely, and the assembly authority would no longer be part of the police.

People are allowed to protest. The Left wants to protect this right better. People should be allowed to cover their faces at protests. The police should no longer decide about protests. Another office should do that.

The Left wants to abolish Berlin's Verfassungsschutz (domestic intelligence agency) as a secret service. It would be replaced by a research-based information and documentation center that uses only public sources. In the party's view, the agency harms the rule of law more than it helps.

The Verfassungsschutz is a secret service. It watches enemies of democracy. The Left wants to close it in Berlin. A new office should replace it. That office should work openly and do research, without secret methods.

The Left wants to equip the professional fire department so that it can meet required response times and staffing levels. To that end, more people are to be trained and hired, and stations and vehicles renewed.

The fire department should reach people fast enough. It needs more staff for that. The Left wants to train and hire more people. More women should join too. Stations and vehicles should be repaired.

The Left wants to draw lessons from attacks on the power supply, which in its view exposed weaknesses in civil protection. It calls for investment in resilient grids, clear crisis plans, emergency shelter, and an emergency fund for those affected. Help should also reach people who cannot look after themselves.

In a big power outage, many people need help. The Left wants Berlin to be better prepared. There should be emergency shelters. People affected should get money for their costs. Helpers should visit people at home.

The Left wants Berlin's authorities to be better staffed and organized for disasters. It plans a rollout plan for emergency contact points in the districts and neighborhoods, a review of vulnerable spots in the power grid, and up-to-date emergency plans for the administration.

The Left wants Berlin to be better prepared for disasters. The authorities should get enough staff for this. The districts should have places where people can get help in an emergency. The power grid should be better protected. Schools and daycare centers should get emergency plans too.

The Left wants to give the white-collar crime units of Berlin's public prosecutor's office more staff and a better organization. The platform sees white-collar crime, corruption, and abuse of office as a major danger to the state and to trust in it.

The Left wants to do more against white-collar crime. That includes tax fraud and corruption. Corruption means that someone takes bribes. The prosecutor's office should get more experts for this.

The Left wants prison sentences to be imposed and served only in exceptional cases and wants to put open prisons back at the center. The party considers jail time in place of unpaid fines (Ersatzfreiheitsstrafe) unjust because, in its view, it only hits poor people, and wants to curb it.

The Left wants fewer people to go to prison. Some people go to jail because they cannot pay a fine. The Left thinks this is unfair and wants it to happen less often. Prisoners should be better prepared for life after release.

The Left wants to strengthen prison staff through supervision, further training, and better pay. Anonymous, independent reporting offices are to be set up or expanded to counter corruption, abuse of power, and improper treatment. The platform regards motivated staff as a precondition for successful rehabilitation.

The Left wants to help people who work in prisons. They should get counseling and training. They should also earn more money. There should be reporting offices. People can report problems there without giving their name.

The Left wants prisoners to receive the minimum wage in jobs covered by social insurance for their work inside prison, so that they are not released in debt. Programs in custody should be geared to inmates' needs, and people released should not end up homeless. The party wants to reverse restrictions imposed by the CDU-SPD Senate on inmate representation, prison newspapers, and cultural activities.

Prisoners work in prison. The Left wants to pay them the minimum wage for it. That way they leave prison without debt. Nobody should have to live on the street after prison. Newspapers and theater in prison should get more room again.

The Left wants to remove offenses typically linked to poverty from criminal law, above all riding without a ticket, and to do so without any replacement penalty. Fines should be dischargeable through community service, and legal aid should be available in criminal proceedings. The party argues that criminal law and criminal procedure hit people with little money especially hard.

The Left wants to stop punishing people for riding without a ticket. This should also apply to other offenses caused by poverty. People who cannot pay a fine should be able to do community work. Poor people should get money for a lawyer. The Left says criminal law hits poor people harder than rich people.

The Left rejects blanket measures and collective punishment against soccer fans and wants fewer police deployed at matches. Fan projects are to get more funding, and their staff a right to refuse to testify. The party wants to keep standing sections, affordable tickets and the 50+1 rule.

The Left wants to protect soccer fans better. There should be no punishment for whole groups of fans. There should be fewer police at matches. Fan projects should get more money. Standing areas and cheap tickets should stay.

The Left calls for a ban on all militant neo-Nazi organizations and for disarming right-wing structures. Prosecutors and investigators are to shift their priorities more toward pursuing these groups.

The Left wants to ban militant neo-Nazi groups. Right-wing groups should have to give up their weapons. Prosecutors and investigators should focus more on these groups.

The Left wants to do without expensive major events and symbolic large-scale projects and spend less on surveillance cameras. The money is to go to social services and infrastructure. The administration is to become more digital and efficient.

The Left does not want to spend money on expensive big projects. There should also be less money for surveillance cameras. The money should go to social services. Government offices should work faster and more digitally.

The Left wants to develop the city together with residents and give them more influence. Referendum results would be implemented, neighborhood management continued, and early, open-ended public participation held before every zoning plan.

The Left wants people to have more say in city planning. Referendum results should be carried out. Before every building plan, there should be a talk with local people. Each borough should have a contact person for this. Local groups should get money and spaces.

The Left wants to strengthen the legal standing of seniors' representative bodies and apply it uniformly in all districts. To do this, the Seniorenmitwirkungsgesetz (seniors' participation law) would be revised.

The Left wants to strengthen the bodies that speak for older people. They should be allowed to speak and make motions in district assemblies. Their election should be on the same day as the Berlin election. That way more people should vote.

The Left wants to involve young people more in political decisions, for example through speaking rights in district bodies, stronger youth parliaments and fixed youth budgets in every district. It stands by voting at 16 and is looking into lowering the voting age further. The reasoning is that children and young people are underrepresented in politics.

The Left wants young people to have more say. They should be allowed to speak in district bodies. Every district should have money that young people decide on. Voting at 16 should stay. The party is checking whether even younger people could vote.

The Left wants to preserve and expand neighborhood centers, community houses, meeting places and advice centers. Volunteering is to receive more support, space and recognition. In new residential districts, space for social facilities is to be planned in from the start.

Berlin has many meeting places in its neighborhoods. The Left wants to keep these places and create more. Volunteers should get more help and rooms. New schools should also be open to the neighborhood. The districts should get enough money for this.

The Left wants a transparency law that obliges authorities to publish information within fixed deadlines and in machine-readable form. Access should be free of charge, and publicly funded media content should remain available for the long term.

The Left wants a transparency law for Berlin. Public offices would then have to publish information on their own. This should happen quickly and in a usable form. Access should cost nothing. Programs paid for with public money should stay online for a long time.

The Left wants effective protection for people who report wrongdoing. In addition to protection under employment law, technically secure, encrypted and anonymous reporting channels are to be available.

Some people report mistakes and wrongdoing in agencies or companies. They are called whistleblowers. The Left wants to protect them better. They should not lose their jobs. They should be able to give tips safely and without their name.

The Left wants to make Berlin's government a more attractive employer, because many positions are vacant and staff leave for better-paying employers. Plans include the capital-city bonus (Hauptstadtzulage) for everyone, pay at the average of all states, permanent positions and flexible working hours.

Berlin's public offices are short of many workers. The Left wants to pay better for this work. Everyone should get the capital-city bonus. That is an extra payment on top of the salary. Jobs should no longer be temporary. There should be more working from home and flexible hours.

The Left wants to use more in-house training to recruit and retain additional staff for Berlin's administration. A new "AusbildungsLAB" (training lab) would develop ideas for modern training, and trainees would be reliably hired after graduating and given affordable housing.

The Left wants to train more young people in city offices. This should give Berlin more staff. After training, they should get a steady job. They should also get cheap apartments.

The Left wants to create a permanent structure that lets agencies act together immediately in crises and conflicts. The platform sees cooperation across agencies as the most important precondition for this.

The Left wants to prepare city offices for crises. The offices should then work together quickly. There should be set teams and rules for this. A law should secure it.

The Left wants a participation law that sets firm minimum standards for how residents are involved in decisions. The party says participation must not be merely for show and should also cover transportation and other issues.

The Left wants a law on participation. It should set firm rules for how people in Berlin can have a say. This covers building, traffic, and other topics. People should also be able to watch borough meetings online.

The Left wants Berliners to be able to propose projects for public funds themselves and decide on them in participatory bodies. In addition to the participatory budgets in the boroughs, there would be one for the whole state.

The Left wants a participatory budget for all of Berlin. This means people propose projects themselves. And they help decide what the city spends money on. Some boroughs already do this.

The Left wants organizations working for democracy, participation and against discrimination and the far right to receive long-term rather than project-by-project funding. A Demokratiefördergesetz (democracy promotion act) is meant to secure this, because the program says these groups often work under insecure conditions.

Many groups work for democracy and against discrimination. They often get money only for a short time. The Left wants a law that gives them lasting funding. The groups should be able to work independently.

The Left wants to protect the freedom of expression of public employees while keeping enemies of the constitution out. It considers screening all applicants through the domestic intelligence agency disproportionate. Instead it relies on civic education, trained HR staff, and faster disciplinary proceedings.

People who work for the state should be able to say what they think. Enemies of the constitution should not work for the state. The Left does not want the secret service to check all applicants. It wants more civic education and training.

The Left wants to lower the hurdles for citizens' initiatives, scrap the approval quorum, and allow referendums on more subjects. In addition, Berlin is to get a permanent citizens' dialogue whose members are chosen by lot and whose recommendations the state parliament must take up.

The Left wants people in Berlin to have more say. A citizens' initiative should need fewer signatures. People should be allowed to vote on more subjects. There should also be a permanent citizens' dialogue. Its members are picked by lot.

The Left wants everyone who lives in Berlin to be able to vote and is pushing for voting rights after five years of residence, even without German citizenship. In addition, the electoral thresholds in state and district elections are to be dropped and the signature requirements for nominations lowered.

The Left wants to change election law. People without a German passport should be allowed to vote too. They must have lived here for five years. The electoral threshold should go. That is a rule that keeps small parties from getting seats.

The Left wants to set up a commission that develops proposals for reforming Berlin's state constitution. Citizens are to be actively involved in several stages.

The Left wants to update Berlin's constitution. The constitution is the state's most important law. A commission should make proposals for this. The people of Berlin should help with the work.

The Left wants to remove barriers to the justice system, especially for people with low incomes. This includes more advice services, understandable information, a more digital and more local justice system, and better protection for victims of crime and for attorney-client privilege.

The Left wants all people to get justice more easily. This matters most for people with little money. There should be more advice and information in plain language. Victims of crime should get more help. Courts should be close to where people live.

The Left wants to improve working conditions for all occupational groups in the justice system, explicitly including non-judicial staff, in order to attract new recruits. This includes more training, digital and more uniform IT, and modernized court buildings.

The Left wants better jobs in the justice system. This applies to all jobs there. That way more people should apply. Courts should get better computer systems. The buildings should be renovated.

The Left wants to protect Berlin's state Constitutional Court from being taken over by anti-democratic forces. At the same time, a minority should not be able to block the election of constitutional judges. The party wants to work out with experts how this can be achieved.

Berlin has its own constitutional court. The Left wants to protect this court. Enemies of democracy should not be able to take it over. Also, nobody should be able to block the election of judges. Experts should look for solutions.

In the long run, the Left aims for a self-governing judiciary with independent judicial councils that decide on staffing, budget, and organization. As a first step, the judicial selection committee is to be more closely involved in hiring judges. The party wants to restore separate budget chapters for the individual courts.

The Left wants the courts to run themselves. Independent councils should decide on staff and money. Today the ministry decides a lot. First, a committee should have more say in hiring judges. Each court should again get its own part of the budget.

The Left wants to enshrine antifascism as a state goal in Berlin's constitution. It favors banning the AfD and wants Berlin to initiate a motion to that end in the Bundesrat. In the state parliament, any cooperation with the AfD is to be ruled out.

The Left wants to change Berlin's constitution. It should say: The state stands against fascism. The Left also wants a ban on the AfD party. Berlin should propose this in the Bundesrat, the chamber of the states. No parliamentary group should work with the AfD.

The Left wants a state strategy spanning all government departments to push back far-right structures in Berlin. Counseling centers, victim support and prevention programs are to receive more and more reliable funding. The platform points to a rising number of far-right incidents, including by young people.

The Left wants a plan against far-right groups in Berlin. All parts of the government should work together on it. Counseling centers and help for victims should get more money. There should be more prevention programs. Young people should find other options than violent groups.

The Left wants to require staff in education, social services, the public sector, and private security, as well as members of staff and works councils, to take training on discrimination, racism, and far-right ideologies. It also plans a contact point for volunteers and public awareness campaigns.

The Left wants required training for many workers. The training is about racism and far-right ideas. Teachers and security staff are among those who must take it. There will also be campaigns for democracy.

The Left wants to defend the tax-exempt nonprofit status of antifascist associations and to decriminalize peaceful antifascist civil disobedience. It rejects extraditing activists to other countries.

The Left wants to protect antifascist groups. They should keep their tax benefits. Peaceful protest against the far right should no longer be a crime. Activists should not be handed over to other countries.

The Left wants to protect the public service from civil servants with far-right views but rejects new Berufsverbote (bans from public employment). In addition, known neo-Nazis are no longer to be given training slots in public sports facilities.

The Left wants to protect the state from far-right civil servants. But it does not want new job bans. Each case should be checked on its own. Known neo-Nazis should not be allowed to train in public gyms.

The Left calls for a committee of inquiry into links between the NSU and other right-wing terrorist structures and Berlin. The inquiry into the series of right-wing attacks in Neukölln and the study commission against antisemitism, racism, and anti-Muslim hostility are also to be continued.

The Left wants parliament to keep looking into far-right violence. A new committee should examine links between the terror group NSU and Berlin. The attacks in Neukölln should also be examined further. A commission against racism and antisemitism should start working again.

The Left commits to a united Europe based on solidarity and wants to deepen Berlin's cooperation with Polish municipalities and other European capitals. Exchange in science and culture is meant to help tackle shared tasks such as climate adaptation, mobility, and social participation.

The Left wants a united Europe. Berlin should work more with cities in Poland. The culture train to Poland should keep running. Berlin should also learn from other capitals in Europe.

The Left rejects rearmament and what it sees as a growing militarization of society. It intends to hold this position in the Berlin state parliament as well as in the Bundesrat and to advocate for "Friedenstüchtigkeit" (being fit for peace) instead.

The Left is against rearmament. Rearmament means more weapons and more money for the military. The Left wants to vote against it in Berlin's parliament. It also wants to say no in the Bundesrat. It stands up for peace.

The Left demands that arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court be enforced in Germany and Berlin without exception. According to the platform, international law and human rights should apply to everyone, regardless of political or financial interests.

The International Criminal Court prosecutes serious crimes such as war crimes. Sometimes it issues an arrest warrant for a person. The Left wants the police to arrest these people when they enter Germany. This should also apply to politicians in high office.

The Left wants to preserve the freedom and autonomy of arts and culture and opposes screening of cultural and civil society groups by the domestic intelligence service. According to the platform, cultural workers must be able to work without fear of repression. The party also wants to strengthen minority cultures in the city.

The Left wants to protect the freedom of art. The state should not check artists' opinions. The domestic intelligence service should not screen cultural projects. The Left also wants to strengthen minority cultures.

The Left wants to raise culture's share of Berlin's total budget from under 2 percent today to 2.5 percent in the short term and 3 percent in the following years. The money is meant above all to better equip the boroughs for cultural work and cultural participation. The platform sees culture as a public responsibility.

Berlin spends less than 2 percent of its money on culture today. The Left wants to change that. Soon it should be 2.5 percent. Later it should be 3 percent. The boroughs should get more money for culture.

The Left wants to review and simplify the cultural funding system together with professional associations. Cultural workers are to help shape funding programs, and independent juries are to play a larger role. A Berlin cultural funding law would serve as a guideline.

The rules for cultural funding are complicated. The Left wants to make them simpler. Artists and associations should have a say. Independent juries should decide on funding. Politicians should accept these decisions.

The Left wants to set up an independent contact point for people affected by abuse of power in the cultural sector. It would be paired with binding procedures for complaints and conflicts and more transparency on fees and salaries. The platform regards abuse of power as a structural problem.

There is abuse of power in the cultural sector. The Left wants an independent office for people affected. They can get help there. Theaters and museums should disclose their fees. The pay of their directors should also be public.

The Left wants collective bargaining agreements in all cultural institutions, rising minimum fees across all funding lines, and permanent jobs for freelance teachers at music schools. The platform justifies this with the low incomes of many freelance cultural workers. The party rejects converting the state-owned theaters to a different model.

Many artists earn very little. The Left wants higher minimum fees. All cultural institutions should have collective pay agreements. Music school teachers should get permanent jobs if they want them. The state's theaters should stay with the state.

The Left wants to give the Stiftung für Kulturelle Weiterbildung und Kulturberatung (foundation for cultural training and consulting) more money and staff and secure it for the long term. Training on discrimination awareness and prevention would become mandatory in all cultural institutions. Existing anti-discrimination structures in the cultural sector are to be adequately funded.

Berlin has a foundation for cultural training. The Left wants to give it more money and staff. All cultural institutions should have required training against discrimination. Offices that work against discrimination should get enough money.

The Left wants stable multi-year funding for the independent arts scene instead of leaving it in uncertainty every year. The platform views the independent scene as a sector in its own right rather than an add-on to the major institutions. Funding tools for the individual art forms are to be developed further.

The independent scene means artists without permanent venues. The Left wants to fund them over several years. That makes planning easier. Grants and fees for exhibitions should become normal. Programs that were cut should get more money again.

The Left wants to keep Berlin's clubs from being pushed out of their locations. It plans a dedicated state funding program for venues, more money for soundproofing and simpler permits. At the federal level it wants to push for capped commercial rents and stronger protection against eviction.

Many clubs in Berlin have to close or move. The Left wants to protect the clubs. The state should give clubs money. There should be more money for noise protection. Rents for business spaces should have an upper limit.

The Left wants to secure the long-term supply of affordable studios and rehearsal rooms and add 1,000 workspaces rented at cost. It argues that many artists cannot afford space on the open market and that the workspace program has been cut sharply.

Many artists cannot find affordable rooms to work in. The Left wants to create 1,000 new workspaces. The rent should only cover the costs. Empty offices should be used for culture. Cultural sites should not be sold.

The Left wants to secure and expand libraries, music schools, adult education centers, youth art schools and municipal galleries for the long term. It calls for minimum standards, dedicated laws for libraries and music schools, and adequate funding for the districts. The Central and State Library is to get a new site at Alexanderplatz.

The Left wants to strengthen libraries and music schools in the districts. There should be new laws for this. The districts should get enough money for culture. Music school teachers should have permanent jobs. The big state library should move to Alexanderplatz.

The Left wants to ensure cultural participation regardless of income. Its plans include a permanent state KulturPass (culture pass) for young people, a 3-euro ticket at all public cultural institutions and more cultural programs for children and for people living in refugee housing.

Culture should be affordable for everyone. Young people aged 16 to 21 should get 100 euros a year for culture. Public cultural institutions should offer a ticket for 3 euros. Children in refugee housing should also get cultural programs.

The Left wants to draw up a long-term strategy for an accessible cultural life together with institutions and advocacy groups. Accessibility is to apply to audiences as well as to people working in cultural institutions.

Many cultural places have barriers for people with disabilities. The Left wants a long-term plan to fix this. People affected should have a say. People with disabilities should also be able to work well in culture. There should be money for this.

The Left wants to fund the ecological conversion of cultural institutions and build sustainability criteria into cultural funding. It calls for a dedicated strategy for digitizing culture and for protecting copyright where artificial intelligence is used.

Cultural venues should harm the climate less. There should be funding and advice for this. Culture should also become more digital. Artificial intelligence must not simply use artists' works. Artists should be paid fairly for it.

The Left wants remembrance and memorial site work to be adequately funded and shielded from political interference. May 8 is to become an annual work-free day of remembrance. On East German history, the party seeks a nuanced remembrance culture that covers all of Germany.

Berlin should remember the crimes of the Nazi era. The Left wants to give memorial sites enough money. Politicians should not interfere there. May 8 should be a day off for remembrance every year. Berlin should also remember the history of East Germany.

The Left wants to set up a commission to address Berlin's colonial legacy. Civil society groups are to negotiate the renaming of streets and squares there. In addition, a central site for learning about and remembering German colonialism is to be created.

Some streets in Berlin are named after men from the colonial era. These men were responsible for exploitation and genocide. A commission should discuss new street names. Berlin should get a place for learning about the colonial era.

The Left wants to reform public broadcasting: broader participation, more news and culture, more transparency and more say for the public. The broadcasting fee should still be set through an independent process, while more people should be exempt from paying it. DAB+ digital radio should be kept permanently.

The Left wants to change public broadcasting. It should offer more news and culture. It should show more openly how it spends money. More people should not have to pay the broadcasting fee. Radio by antenna should stay.

The Left wants stricter transparency rules and more staff co-determination written into the interstate treaty governing rbb, the public broadcaster for Berlin and Brandenburg. Staff cuts and program cuts should end, and freelancers should be paid like employees. The broadcasting council should better reflect Berlin's diversity.

rbb is the public broadcaster for Berlin and Brandenburg. The Left wants more openness there and more say for staff. The broadcaster should stop cutting jobs and programs. Freelancers should get the same pay as employees.

The Left wants to limit the opinion-shaping power of large online platforms such as Meta, TikTok and Google. To do so, media concentration law should be broadened and the Medienanstalt Berlin-Brandenburg (mabb, the regional media regulator) given stronger legal powers and more money. The program also relies on media literacy education for young people.

Big internet companies decide which news people see. The Left wants to limit that power. The media regulator in Berlin should get more rights and more money. Young people should learn to use media critically.

The Left wants non-commercial community radio stations to be legally recognized as a third pillar alongside public and private broadcasters and to receive basic funding. Existing support for local journalism should be made permanent.

Community radio stations do not aim to make a profit. People can make their own radio there. The Left wants to protect these stations by law and give them steady money. Local news should also get lasting support.

The Left wants to give the Medienboard, the film and media funding body for Berlin and Brandenburg, sufficient resources. Support should go to all film genres, film festivals, the games and visual effects industries, and cinemas as cultural venues.

Berlin is a film city. The Left wants to give more money for film funding. Film festivals, video games and small cinemas should also get support. Old films should be saved in digital form.

The Left wants to develop press funding together with other German states that leaves editorial independence untouched. Protection against SLAPPs, lawsuits meant to intimidate journalists, should also apply to purely domestic cases.

Newspapers are struggling because big internet companies are strong. The Left wants to support the press with money. The state should not interfere with reporting. Journalists should be better protected from lawsuits meant to scare them.

The Left wants broadcaster contracts and film funding tied more closely to collective agreements, jobs with social insurance and fair fees. For artificial intelligence in media, it calls for clear rules and worker co-determination. The share of women and diversity in the industry should increase.

People who work in media should get fair pay. Companies with public funding should follow union wage agreements. There should be clear rules for artificial intelligence. More women and more different kinds of people should work in media.

The Left wants to write the funding of key memorial institutions into Berlin's state constitution to secure them even under governments that include the AfD. At the same time, remembrance culture is to be broadened to cover German colonialism and victim groups that have received little attention so far.

The Left wants to protect important memorial sites for the long term. The money for them should be written into Berlin's constitution. There should be new memorial sites, for example on German colonialism. Colonialism means Germany once ruled over other countries. Staff should get better working conditions.

The Left wants to reclaim public spaces for neighborhood and public-interest uses and reduce commercial advertising there. According to the platform, Berlin should be less of a place for consumption and enjoyable even without money.

The Left wants squares and streets to serve neighbors more. There should be fewer ads there. People should be able to enjoy Berlin outdoors without spending money.

The Left wants to abolish user fees at public toilets and add more locations. The platform treats toilets as part of public infrastructure and criticizes that urinals are free while stalls often cost money.

The Left wants free public toilets in Berlin. They should be open day and night. Today many stalls cost money. Urinals are mostly free. The party thinks this is unfair. There should also be more toilets.

The Left wants to gradually establish daily physical activity at Berlin schools and invest in sports facilities and physical education teachers to make it possible. Sports should be accessible regardless of income, background, age, or gender, with grassroots sports as the foundation. Ticket prices for sporting events should be socially affordable.

Children should be active at school every day. For this, the Left wants to build and repair sports halls. There should be more sports teachers. Sports should be possible for everyone, even with little money. Tickets for sports events should be affordable.

The Left wants to back volunteering in sports by raising the allowance for volunteer coaches and using digital tools to cut paperwork. Clubs would get planning security through a renewed agreement with the Landessportbund (state sports federation) and more investment funding.

Many people work in sports without pay. The Left wants to raise the allowance they get. They should have less paperwork. Sports clubs should get reliable money from the state.

The Left wants a decade of stepped-up investment in sports facilities and would create a central public construction office for building them. Renovating school gyms comes first so that mandatory physical education can take place again.

Many gyms in Berlin are in bad shape. The Left wants to spend a lot of money on sports facilities for ten years. School gyms should be fixed first. A new office should manage the building work. Gym times should be handed out online and fairly.

The Left wants to renovate Berlin's public pools, keep them reliably open and make entry free for children and students under 18. ID checks at the entrance would end, and every child should be able to swim by the end of elementary school.

The Left wants to fix the public pools in Berlin. Children and teens under 18 should get in for free. No one should have to show an ID at the door. All children should learn to swim in elementary school. Pools should also be open during school breaks.

The Left wants to lift the blanket swimming ban in the Spree river and designate legally secure river bathing areas at suitable spots. Swimming in lakes that people already use would also become legal, so districts without an outdoor pool get public places to cool off.

Today people may not swim in the Spree river. The Left wants to end this ban. There should be river bathing areas at good spots. Swimming should also be allowed in more lakes. Each district should get at least one bathing spot.

The Left opposes a Berlin bid for the Olympic and Paralympic Games, citing underfunded grassroots sports and shortcomings in public services. It supports a referendum on the question and says it will respect the result.

The Left does not want the Olympic Games in Berlin. It says the Games cost billions. That money would then be missing for everyday sports. The people of Berlin should vote on it themselves. The Left wants to respect the result.

The Left wants to clear the renovation backlog at the Sportforum Hohenschönhausen and the Olympiapark. The Sportforum is to become a European showcase campus for elite sports, and the Olympiapark an open sports park for residents. The platform presents this as an alternative to costly Olympic construction.

Berlin has two large sports sites: the Sportforum and the Olympiapark. Both are in poor shape. The Left wants to repair and modernize them. The Olympiapark should stay open to everyone. Young athletes should get more help with school and careers.

The Left wants to preserve all of Berlin's ice rinks and ice stadiums and to upgrade their cooling systems through an investment program for energy efficiency. For water sports, the Grünau regatta course is to be expanded into the city's central main facility. The aim is to secure both sports despite high energy costs and aging equipment.

The Left wants to keep Berlin's ice rinks. The cooling systems should be renewed and use less energy. The rinks should not cut their opening hours. Water sports should also get better facilities. People with disabilities should get easier access to the water.

The Left wants to support sports outside of clubs and expand free exercise options in public spaces. Run-down soccer pitches and basketball courts are to be renovated through a special program. Local children and teenagers are to take part in the planning.

Many people do sports without joining a club. The Left wants more options for them. Broken soccer pitches and basketball courts should be repaired. Children and teenagers should have a say. People should be able to borrow sports gear for free.

The Left wants to support nonprofit structures in esports and bring gaming further into club life. Esports is to become part of municipal youth work and association work. Offerings oriented toward the common good are to be made legally eligible for sports funding.

Esports means people play video games as a competition. Many young people do this. The Left wants to support esports in clubs and youth work. The money should come with rules. For example, protection of young people should be strengthened.