Overview
- A sondierungspapier from Linkspartei, the Greens and the SPD proposes to grant active and passive voting rights at municipal and state level to people who have lived in Berlin for five years, explicitly including non‑EU nationals.
- The plan drew immediate political pushback from the Union, with Günter Krings calling the proposal unconstitutional and urging loyalty to the Basic Law.
- Legal experts cited Article 28 of the Basic Law, which allows municipal voting for EU citizens, and the Bundesverfassungsgericht’s 1990 case law that ties suffrage to the Staatsvolk as the likely legal ground for a court challenge.
- Coverage on Monday showed contrasts across German states: Bavaria’s interior ministry enforces rules that bar third‑country nationals from municipal votes, highlighting how any Berlin law would clash with existing state practices.
- If Berlin’s coalition presses ahead, courts or political opponents would likely seek norm control in Karlsruhe, and the debate could reshape how Germany balances local inclusion goals against constitutional limits on noncitizen suffrage.