Governing Mayor Kai Wegner was reportedly unreachable for hours on the day of the power outage. A Tagesspiegel report contradicts his claim that he had been on the phone continuously. The SPD is now calling for his resignation.
On the day of the power outage in Berlin, Kai Wegner was reportedly unreachable for hours in the morning. The CDU politician had stated that he had been on the phone from early on with the city’s crisis teams as well as the federal government and the Federal Ministry of the Interior. According to a Tagesspiegel report from July 8, 2026, this was not true.
What Wegner did instead remains unclear. In the afternoon he played tennis to, as he said, clear his head. The revelation has triggered a coalition crisis.
SPD leader Krach considers Wegner disqualified and is demanding human decency. The coalition partners are reacting to the revelation shortly before the elections.
