About 5,600 signatures have so far been submitted to the Berlin State Electoral Office for an anti-OoH intiative in Berlin — roughly 3% of the required total. The campaign now has two more months to gather support, but past statistics suggest the chances of success are slim.
Berlin: Anti-OoH Initiative Faces Long Odds
The citizens’ initiative Berlin Werbefrei, which calls for restrictions on outdoor advertising in the German capital, has collected only a fraction of the required signatures halfway through its collection phase.
The Berlin State Returning Officer announced that just over 5,600 signatures have so far been submitted to the State Electoral Office. Additional signatures are currently being gathered at the district level.
Of the signatures submitted so far, around 3,400 have been reviewed by district electoral offices, with just over 3,000 confirmed as valid.
This leaves the initiative far short of the 174,000 signatures needed to trigger a referendum. The signature collection period began in early January and runs until 8 May 2026.
Only 3% of required signatures so far
The signatures submitted to date amount to roughly 3% of the total required. While a large share of signatures in such initiatives is typically collected toward the end of the campaign, a look at previous Berlin initiatives suggests the chances of success remain slim.
The Basic Income referendum initiative failed in 2022 with around 120,000 signatures; at the halfway point it had about 23,400 submitted signatures. By contrast, the successful Climate-Neutral Berlin initiative that same year had collected nearly 41,000 signatures halfway through the process.
Running in parallel with Berlin Werbefrei is the Berlin Autofrei initiative. At the halfway mark, it has received around 20,800 signatures.
