Linke on the economy

The Left wants to preserve the mix of retail and small business in the city's neighborhoods and calls for open-ended commercial leases. Micro-businesses and solo self-employed people should get their own advice and support service.

Small shops in the neighborhoods are struggling. Rents often rise sharply. The Left wants shop leases with no end date. Small firms and self-employed people should get easy access to advice and support.

According to the platform, rising rents driven by gentrification, competition for space, and tourism are displacing established structures, and fixed-term leases enable steep rent hikes and planning uncertainty. The city should intervene actively, and the development of local centers should be oriented toward the historic neighborhood cores. The party sees online retail and delivery services as a threat to local shops and a source of precarious jobs. New solutions for delivery traffic and logistics should be developed with the chambers of commerce. Business development funding should support the founding of cooperatives and other solidarity-based enterprises.

The Left wants to bring the port's infrastructure fully back into city ownership and opposes selling stakes in the port operator HHLA and terminals to shipping companies. This is meant to give the city democratic control over the port.

The port is very important for Hamburg. The Left wants the port to belong fully to the city. The city should not sell parts to shipping companies. Hamburg should work together with other ports.

Instead of competing, northern German and European seaports should cooperate more closely; in the party's view this would make further deepening of the Elbe unnecessary. A new port development plan should use existing areas more intensively and renovate existing facilities rather than build more terminals. The port's collective wage agreement should be secured and extended. More freight should move by rail and waterway instead of by road. Shipping companies should switch to less polluting propulsion, and an emergency program should bring shore power to container ships as well.

The Left wants to enshrine a ban on privatization in Hamburg's constitution and bring key infrastructure back into public ownership. It aims for a democratized economy in which workers help decide on production and distribution.

The city should no longer sell public property. This should be written in Hamburg's constitution. Important facilities should belong to the city again. Workers should have more say in their companies.

Key infrastructure, especially social infrastructure, should be returned to municipal ownership. The city should build up its own capacity in construction and related trades. Land for industry and commerce should no longer be sold but only granted on long-term ground leases. The party wants to use state shareholdings more to protect jobs in important sectors and to accompany modernization. It calls for a broad debate on workers' participation rights and says many of its demands can only be achieved in a socialist society.