Christoph Meyer

Spitzenkandidat (FPD)

Dima Vachedin talks to Christoph Meyer (FDP), candidate for Mayor of Berlin.

GENAU and WIR.DE present an interview series with the top candidates of the parties running in the Berlin election. We reached out to every party with a chance of entering the Berlin House of Representatives (including the AfD). GENAU editor-in-chief Dima Vachedin spoke with those who responded. Das Original des Interviews wurde auf Russisch veröffentlicht — dies ist die Übersetzung.

Dima Vachedin:
In your opinion, what are the three biggest problems facing Berlin?

Christoph Meyer:
The first problem is economic development. We've seen job losses for three years now. We can see the crisis arriving in Berlin. In Berlin, only the administration, the public sector, keeps growing. We're still the startup capital, but Munich and the Ruhr region are slowly catching up. We simply aren't managing to keep companies in the city through the later funding rounds.
The second big problem is neglect. In every sense. That means, for example, the dirt and the decay of this city. Despite all the announcements, nothing happens. We need to prioritize the district public order offices completely differently, so they focus more on trash instead of mainly writing parking tickets, because that revenue stays with the district. We also say very clearly: whoever makes the mess has to clean it up.
And the second part of the neglect issue is, of course, security. We now effectively have no-go areas in this city, where people won't venture at certain times if they belong to a certain religion — where, for example, Jews or homosexuals won't go. And then there's public transport at night for women and the elderly.

Dima Vachedin:
And I've heard you're also in favor of deporting foreign homeless people.

Christoph Meyer:
Yes, we believe these homeless people are still human beings. But in the end you also have to say clearly that their home country bears responsibility too. We're also hearing this has become a problem with Germans from other municipalities. Because apparently it's more convenient for municipalities to tell people: just go to Berlin, the infrastructure's a bit better there.

Dima Vachedin:
Do you think that's said so directly?

Christoph Meyer:
I think it's said, directly or indirectly. But if you looked at how many of the homeless are actually "Berliners," it would be the smallest share. We have to help these people, we have to get them into housing, we have to give them a structured life again so they can take part in society. But ultimately the responsibility lies with each person's home country. For our part, we need to focus on the people we're responsible for — the ones who were born here.

Dima Vachedin:
Are you against homeless people using public transport as a shelter?

Christoph Meyer:
It's a fine line. Of course many of these people are genuinely struggling. It's not that anyone wants to chase them away. But the city is neglected, people are setting up entire camps under bridges. We need to reclaim public space for all citizens. We need a much stronger police presence, we need to free the police from administrative tasks, and we need to monitor crime-affected locations with temporary video surveillance. We need to send a clear stop signal that the city no longer permits and accepts what it accepted in the past.
And the third big problem for the city — coming back to the first question — is housing and construction. When it comes to housing and construction, the simple truth is: the only thing that helps is building more housing. That means we don't demonize private investment, we don't demonize cooperative housing that people want to build here, and we make it possible to build across all price segments. The constant push for more regulation — which the SPD, the Greens, Die Linke, but also the CDU are calling for — clearly only makes the problem worse.
We believe part of the problem is excessive regulation, which is driving more and more people out of the market. These are, in fact, the landlords who've saved up five, six, seven apartments to secure their survival and their retirement. They say: I don't want to keep being portrayed as the evil landlord while getting a return that's significantly lower than if I'd put the money into a stock fund. So they sell their apartments to large investment companies, which then consistently focus on optimizing rental profits. And it's precisely these small private landlords who have done the most to keep rents in check, because their main interest is in a healthy landlord-tenant relationship.
That also includes building on the edges of Tempelhofer Feld. Immediately. A simple parliamentary resolution would make that development possible. It's good that the CDU has now come around to this too. But it's far too late — we're losing time.
But the second important topic in housing and construction for us is homeownership. Berlin's homeownership rate is far too low — only 14 percent. That's below the national average, which is already low by global standards. Ownership provides security in old age, it's a way of building wealth, and it lets people be self-responsible and self-determined. People who own property treat their surroundings very differently — it stays clean and orderly there.
People always say that building up property ownership is only for the rich. That's simply not true. There are so-called rent-to-own models, where you're already living in the apartment while paying down a loan. We need models that let people buy back their apartment from the municipal housing companies. That option existed once before, in the 1990s — it needs to be revived.

Dima Vachedin:
The Russian-speaking community is still used to investing money primarily in real estate, since back home money can otherwise lose its value quickly. That's music to their ears.

Christoph Meyer:
But that's exactly the mindset we need. 60 to 70 percent of people want to become homeowners. We need to help them. No more making people dependent on the state.

Dima Vachedin:
You mentioned the city's neglect — in that context, how do you assess the efficiency of the BSR, the company that removes waste from public spaces?

Christoph Meyer:
It's a state-owned company, and you have to look at how efficient it really is compared to privately run businesses. There's certainly room for question there. We need to talk about the BSR taking on everything that already works in other European cities. I recently saw robots in Oslo that pick up trash or clean the streets. There are underground waste containers where you can measure the fill level and know: this one needs to be emptied now. All of this, oddly enough, doesn't work in Berlin.

Dima Vachedin:
You've already mentioned the plans to build on the edges of Tempelhofer Feld. But you also want to create a genuine special economic zone there, with shops open on Sundays too. Tell me more about that, I'm curious.

Christoph Meyer:
If we want economic dynamism in Berlin, we need room to experiment, where we loosen as many regulations as possible that can be changed at the state level. Something like the special economic zones we had, in part, in the East after reunification, and which other countries have done very successfully.

Dima Vachedin:
I'd agree with that: for people who've just arrived here in Berlin, it's hard to explain why shops are closed on Sundays.

Christoph Meyer:
Yes, that's hard to explain. Is that the Christian tradition? Then why are the shops open on Sundays in Rome? Concern for employees? The world of work has completely changed — people can take their day off in the middle of the week instead. The state shouldn't be involved in that at all. Plenty of people already work on Sundays, just not in retail. For us, this is a classic example of a rule that's outdated but nobody dares to abolish.

Dima Vachedin:
Another rule that may be outdated: allotment gardens. Are you in favor of building on them?

Christoph Meyer:
If we're short 150,000 or 200,000 apartments, we have to use the city's full potential: Tempelhofer Feld, building upward, and the allotment garden land. We'll build 20,000 apartments on Tempelhofer Feld, another 20,000 on other vacant lots, another 20,000 through added stories, and the rest will come from the allotment garden land.
We can allow, on a temporary basis, adding up to two additional stories to buildings, wherever the structural engineering allows it. Or you can also build on top of single-story supermarkets — there are plenty of options. It's a good thing our city grew together out of twenty separate settlements — we have a lot of room to develop.

Dima Vachedin:
Many people I know — sought-after professionals who emigrated after the war began — are planning to leave Germany once they get a German passport. How can Berlin keep them here?

Christoph Meyer:
Between 150,000 and 300,000 well-educated people leave Germany every year. That's not a problem that only affects Russian-speaking immigrants — "native Germans" are leaving too. Basically, they all say pretty much the same thing: I like this country, but there's so much bureaucracy, obstacles are put in my way everywhere. That's solvable. And it has to change, because Germany needs exactly these kinds of people.
We need to change the mindset: economic prosperity comes from individual people finding their own success and becoming economically active. We're glad about everyone who's economically successful, because in the end that adds up to prosperity for the whole society.
As for citizenship — yes, we made it easier under the "traffic light" coalition, because we were convinced that this, exactly as you describe it, is an incentive for people who enrich this society.
On the other hand, especially since 2015, we as a society haven't managed to clearly define our expectations of newcomers. And the debate we've been having for ten years now — about people who came here from Syria, Afghanistan, and the Middle East — poisons the entire debate about migration.
We at the FDP take a positive view of migration, we need it. On the other hand, we have to clearly state our conditions and expectations. For instance, I still can't understand why we pay refugees cash instead of a payment card. Or why we suspend deportations in winter. All of that casts a shadow over how we see migration.
You can debate how many years it should take to get a passport — five, six, seven, eight. But the people we're talking about here are probably already integrated after five years.
But we must not grant citizenship to anyone who has a problem with Israel's right to exist, or who isn't willing to support themselves through their own work.
On a human level, I understand very well anyone trying to get from Central Africa to Europe, because a better life is waiting here. That's exactly why so many Germans emigrated to America in the 19th century. But as a society, we have to define our own interests and decide what we want and what we don't.


Interview by Dmitry Vachedin. You can read the interview in English and German translation courtesy of our partners at WIR.DE. As a reminder, the election for the Berlin city parliament will take place on September 20, 2026.