"Wherever housing markets are tight, we need effective and legally secure instruments to protect tenants," said Berlin's Governing Mayor Franziska Giffey. For this reason, Berlin, Hamburg and Munich have set out to appeal to the federal and state governments to allow municipalities to have rights of first refusal and averting agreements. "Housing in the city must remain affordable," stressed Hamburg's mayor Peter Tschentscher. The right of first refusal is an important instrument for this. Munich's mayor Dieter Reiter pointed out that local authorities had few options to effectively protect tenants anyway. The current situation without a right of first refusal "means above all great uncertainty for many tenants as to whether their apartments will remain affordable tomorrow."