Reform of Berlin city districts provokes angry protests

When the new district reform was inaugurated in the New Year, local district switchboards were inundated with calls by irate Berliners uncertain where social welfare, tax and registration offices were to be found in the new set up. Of 60 planned "citizens bureaus", which will handle tax and registration matters, only 23 have been opened so far, say angry members of the public. The result has been chaos regarding different addresses and phone numbers in some of the merged districts.

"This amalgamation of districts stinks," complained Herbert Wailing, 74, a pensioner in the eastern city district of Hohenschoenhausen. "There's such a dearth of information. People are left in the dark about what to do and where to go to get bureaucratic things settled." Berlin officials, however, argue that "fusing" some city districts will lead to greater administrative efficiency, while enabling enlarged entities more decision-making power. It will also result in savings of up to 250 million marks (70 million dollars) annually. Brigitte Geffke, 52, who lives in Berlin's Neukoelln district, isn't impressed by such talk. "Nobody answers the phone at the social welfare office," she miffs. Dependent on 450 marks welfare benefit allowance monthly, she complains of needing a sickness certificate from the social welfare, so I can visit my doctor. I've a serious disc problem and can hardly walk."

"The reform of the century" is how the Berlin parliament has been hailing the new district reforms. But such boasting has not impressed the Berliners, many of whom are currently mourning the loss of their old district boundaries. It is not just a case of people learning to accept new "admin" structures. Berliners worry about the affects the contraction of districts will have on their local "Kiez" - neighbourhoods - within the metropolis. For example, strongly affected by the administrative reforms is Prenzlauer Berg, once the "dissident centre" of east Berlin during the communist era. The popular neighbourhood, which remains a magnet for artists, writers and theatre people, ceases to exist officially as a district, after being incorporated with Weissensee in an enlarged "Pankow" city district. Similar adjustments will also have to be made by the residents of Tiergarten and Wedding, two former west Berlin suburbs, which now join eastern Berlin's central 'Mitte' district, to form Berlin's true middle. Its expansion means the district will now contain the revamped Reichstag building topped by Sir Norman Foster's glittering dome, the bold new Chancellory building, the gleaming new Interior Ministry, the elite Unten den Linden boulevard and the lush Tiergarten Park, once a hunting ground of Prussian kings.

Party political emotions were stirred when it was decided that Friedrichshain, an eastern city district, and Kreuzberg, a western one, would "fuse." Local Social Democrats (SPD) and far-left PDS (Party of Democratic Socialism) members voted to make PDS politician Baerbel Grygier, district mayor, thus enabling the post-communists to make inroads into the west via Kreuzberg. The move angered Kreuzberg's local conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party, who felt it might prove a "test run" for an eventual "red-red" SPD-PDS coalition at other levels of the Berlin government. But the conservatives hit back by getting CDU member Joachim Zeller elected as mayor of 'Mitte' district - with help from an unusual source - the Alliance 90-Greens. Dieter Hapel, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) mayor of Berlin's Schoeneberg district - now teamed up with neighbouring Tempelhof - concedes Berlin's new system of administration hasn't gotten away to an auspicious start.

In Lichtenrade - a southern city suburb - he complains, "we've been waiting for two months for approval from the Berlin Senate to rent rooms for one of the new 'Buerger Offices'." Originally, when greater Berlin was created 80 years ago from eight towns, 59 communities and 27 rural parishes, it was divided into 20 city districts. But in the post World War II communist era in east Berlin, after huge prefabricated housing settlements were constructed in the north east of the city - Marzahn, Hohenschoenhausen and Hellersdorf joined the 20 districts, raising the number to 23.

(dpa)