All change?
Berlin’s city-state government is in a financial hole. An election? Probably
THE supposed dazzling showpiece of a newly self-confident united Germany, Berlin is sinking into a financial mire. Behind the resplendent façades of the new federal government buildings and gleaming commercial centres, the city's local government is staggering under spiralling debts, fleeing businesses, vanishing jobs and a property-market collapse. The long-awaited boom in the city, readopted as the national government's seat in 1999, has not arrived. And now the Social Democrats have decided to pull out of the Christian Democrat-led “grand coalition” that has ruled the city-state since 1991.
This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline “All change?”
From the June 9th 2001 edition
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