Good Lifestyle

Franziska Giffey is the first woman to be the mayor of Berlin, one of the most populous cities in Europe. It is a leader with many years of experience in local and national politics.

But even though her name is known far beyond the borders of Germany, her life and achievements are relatively little known before her election as the mayor outside the walls of her office. For our curious readers, we have selected some interesting, less well -known facts about Giffey, a name that we will surely hear a lot in the coming months and years.

Born in the east

Giffey was born in Frankfurt (Oder), which was formerly part of communist Germany, and grew up in Briesen, a village east of the capital Berlin. Therefore, it is well familiar with topics related to the former GDR. From 1998 to 2001 she studied administrative law at the University of Applied Sciences for Public Administration in Berlin and familiarized himself with the challenges of public administration at the legal and theoretical level.

Experience in Brussels

Before she hit a fixed political career, she was able to expand her experience in the administrative area in the Berlin representation at the European Union in Brussels in 2003. Two years later, she accepted a similar position in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg.

Mayor of Neukölln

From 2015 to 2018 she was Mayor of Berlin-Neukölln, one of the twelve districts of the German capital and at the same time one of the most diverse and demanding. This pulsating district, in which people live from all over the world, is known for its international atmosphere, which is also one of the trademark of Berlin, and has a very special social profile that requires a high degree of administrative knowledge.

Minister for family matters

Her political and administrative career banged when she was a government of the minister for family, seniors, women and youth in the government led by another pioneer of German politics, Angela Merkel. She wrote history in her own area when she campaigned for the same payment and better equality standards between women and men. A society in which men and women are equal in which there is equal opportunities regardless of gender and in which everyone can lead a self -determined life, ”she said that women could offer equal opportunities in all possible professional fields. In this way, women can be police officers and work men in childcare or care for the elderly. She also praised a competition for companies that want to implement equality of wage and supported active measures and companies that work for such a policy.

Hard work to solve the apartment crisis

In the past decade, Berlin experienced a dramatic upswing, which was accompanied by a significant lack of available housing market. One of her main tasks since taking office as mayor of Berlin was to tackle this problem. In her first big speech in the Berlin House of Representatives in early 2021, Giffey promised more affordable living space. Although the situation is far from fully solved, the city is well on the way to creating a more sustainable residential system. More houses are built all over the city, so that everyone who chooses Berlin as their home has more chances of better apartments.

In her speech, Giffey mentioned that it was her goal to build 20,000 new apartments a year, including 5,000 subsidized apartments for people with low income. She explained that this could be achieved, among other things, by accelerating the approval and planning procedures. Slow and inefficient bureaucracy is often mentioned as one of the main causes for the current housing crisis in Berlin.

Make Berlin a safe place

At the top of Giffey's list of priorities for Berlin is also that the city is a safe place to live for everyone. The topics of security and internal security are also addressed and are very important so that Berlin remains an open city in which the residents enjoy a high degree of freedom. Due to her experience in Neukölln, which is already a difficult district, she was able to create a better environment for the international residents of this part of the city

Working for a greener city

When Giffey was elected in the middle of the Coronavirus pandemic, the largest global crisis of the recent past, she promised a “fresh start” for the particularly severely affected sectors. As a committed leader, she has already taken important steps to create a greener, more affordable and sustainable city for everyone. Berlin is already considered one of the greenest cities in Europe, but proactive measures to create a better environment are urgently required to compensate for the high population and industrial activity in the city.