# Albert Stegemann

# Albert Stegemann

Albert Stegemann (born 9 March 1976 in Nordhorn) is a German politician of the [Christian Democratic Union](/organizations/christian-democratic-union-of-germany) (CDU) and a state-certified master farmer (*Landwirtschaftsmeister*). He has sat in the Bundestag since 22 October 2013 as the directly elected member for Mittelems (constituency 31) in Lower Saxony.

He left secondary school with a *Realschulabschluss*, served in the Bundeswehr in Lingen (Ems), and trained in agriculture from 1992 to 1995. From 1997 to 1998 he attended a one-year agricultural college while working on his parents' farm, and since 2002 he has been a master farmer and manager of a dairy operation. Before he entered parliament his listed occupation was the farm Landwirtschaftsbetrieb Albert Stegemann at Großringe. He is unmarried and belongs to the Old Reformed Church.

At the 2025 German federal election he held Mittelems with 86,995 first votes (43.9 percent). The CDU took 39.3 percent of second votes in the constituency, and turnout was 85.3 percent. On 13 May 2025 the CDU/CSU Bundestag group made him a deputy chair for agriculture, food and *Heimat*, and for health. A regional report, based on his own announcement, put the vote at 96 percent and described him as the group's previous agriculture spokesperson. In the 21st Bundestag he is a deputy member of the Committee on Health and of the Committee on Agriculture, Food and Homeland. The Bundestag biography also records him, from January 2018, as chair of the group's working group on food and agriculture.

A 2024 review by Abgeordnetenwatch of members' mandatory disclosures reported that Stegemann had listed more than 7.8 million euros since the previous election, the largest sum in that tally. He described the figure as turnover from the sale of cow's milk, generated by employees who run the farm.

## Early life and education

### Family and upbringing

Albert Stegemann was born on 9 March 1976 in Nordhorn, in the district of Grafschaft Bentheim in western Lower Saxony. The Bundestag biography lists him as unmarried and as evangelisch-altreformiert, a member of the Evangelical Old-Reformed Church in Lower Saxony. That church is a Reformed free church whose congregations separated from the regional Reformed church in the Grafschaft Bentheim between 1838 and 1849 and in East Frisia between 1854 and 1861; it was recognized as a corporation under public law in 1950.

On his website he describes himself as the youngest child, with three older sisters. In a statement published by Abgeordnetenwatch he writes that he grew up in the Grafschaft. The Bundestag records that he worked on his parents' farm at the same time as he attended agricultural college, and lists the agricultural holding in his name at Großringe. Großringe and Kleinringe were already separate settlements by 1456; in the 1974 territorial reform the former municipalities of Großringe (with the locality Neugnadenfeld) and Kleinringe were combined into the municipality of Ringe, a member of the Samtgemeinde Emlichheim. Abgeordnetenwatch gives his place of residence as Ringe.

### Schooling, military service and training

He attended the Realschule in Emlichheim until 1992. That detail appears in the biography published for the 18th Bundestag; later official biographies record only the Realschulabschluss, the intermediate secondary-school certificate, without naming the school. The school had opened on 14 April 1961 as a Mittelschule, after the Lower Saxony culture ministry authorized a school for pupils from Emlichheim and surrounding villages, including Laar, Wilsum, Kleinringe and Großringe. From the 1965/66 school year Mittelschulen in Lower Saxony were designated Realschulen, and on 5 May 1969 the Realschule Emlichheim was recognized as a fully developed Realschule.

*The Edith-Stein-Realschule in Emlichheim, the Realschule that Stegemann's Bundestag biography records him as attending until 1992.*

The 18th-Bundestag biography gives the training that followed year by year. In 1992–93 he completed a Berufsgrundbildungsjahr in Agrarwirtschaft, the basic vocational year, and from 1993 to 1995 an in-company apprenticeship ending with a final examination. Later biographies collapse that sequence into agricultural training from 1992 to 1995, described as the basic year plus the vocational course. From 1995 to 1996 he performed Wehrdienst, then still compulsory military service, with the Bundeswehr in Lingen (Ems), in the neighbouring district of Emsland. The Bundestag suspended general conscription in peacetime on 24 March 2011, with effect from 1 July 2011.

In 1997 and 1998 he attended the one-year Fachschule Agrarwirtschaft while continuing to work on the parental farm. The Chamber of Agriculture of Lower Saxony describes that one-year school as teaching the practical basis for managing a farm and as preparation for the master examination; the qualification it confers is staatlich geprüfter Wirtschafter (state-certified agricultural economist), which the parliamentary biographies do not list separately. In 2002 he passed the examination as a staatlich geprüfter Landwirtschaftsmeister, a state-certified master farmer, the occupation under which the Bundestag lists him. The biography for the 19th Bundestag states that from 2001 he was manager of the family-run dairy farm, and in his Abgeordnetenwatch statement he gives 2001 as the year he took over his parents' holding. The Bundestag notes that biographical entries rest on the members' own disclosures.

## Farming and business interests

### The Ringe dairy

The farm is a dairy holding at Großringe, a locality of Ringe in the Samtgemeinde Emlichheim, in the district of Grafschaft Bentheim in Lower Saxony. Ringe borders the Netherlands to the north, and the Vechte runs through the municipality; the Samtgemeinde names agriculture, alongside plastics processing, as a main part of the local economy. The Bundestag lists Stegemann's occupation before he entered parliament as Landwirtschaftsbetrieb Albert Stegemann at Großringe, and records that in 2002 he qualified as a staatlich geprüfter Landwirtschaftsmeister, a state-certified master farmer. Company filings later give the business address as Helwegstraße 39, 49824 Ringe.

*Interior of a dairy barn at the Ringe farm, in a photograph published by the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung in October 2016.*

He describes the place as his parents' farm. In a statement carried by Abgeordnetenwatch he writes that he took it over in 2001; the biography archived for the 19th Bundestag says that from 2001 he was manager of the family-run dairy. The current biography, which the Bundestag says rests on members' own information, still calls him Betriebsleiter of a dairy business, printed there as "Milchviehvertrieb". Neither that entry nor the commercial-register summaries give a herd size.

On his website he writes that, after his election in 2013, employees took over day-to-day work, including the care and feeding of the animals, and that he remained managing director of the agricultural business until the beginning of 2025. A separate page on the same site says he has since given up that management because of the mandate. In June 2026 Abgeordnetenwatch reported that he had left the management, that a female cousin had taken over the running of the business, and that he remained the owner; he told the organisation the change was made for tax reasons and was not connected to the mandate.

The barns have been shown to outsiders more than once. In October 2016 the *Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung* reported that, after a complaint by PETA, Stegemann, described there as a dairy farmer from Ringe and a CDU member of the Bundestag, opened the doors of his cow barns; the photograph published with the report shows the stalls. On 6 March 2024 the *Grafschafter Nachrichten* reported that he had received Thomas Schröder, president of the German Animal Welfare Federation, and Bernhard Krüsken, secretary-general of the German Farmers' Association, at the dairy in Ringe and had led them through the barns. The archived biography for 2017–2021 also lists him, until mid-September 2018, as a member of the supervisory board of Kooperative Milchverwertung Emlichheim-Laarwald-Wielen-Wilsum eG, the regional milk cooperative based in Emlichheim.

### Corporate holdings

From late 2023 the enterprise was put into companies at the Amtsgericht Osnabrück, all at Helwegstraße 39. The sole tradership Albert Stegeman e.K. — the register spelling is Stegeman, with one n — was entered on 14 November 2023 as HRA 208823 and is now marked deleted. A legal-entity identifier issued in February 2023 for a sole proprietorship at the same address used the name "Stegemann, Albert, gewerbliche Tierhaltung"; that entity-supplied record has since lapsed.

Vechtetal Milch GmbH, HRB 220652, was entered on 29 July 2024 with share capital of 1,000,000 euros and the object Milchviehhaltung, the keeping of dairy cattle. The register states that it was created by hiving off the whole business of the sole trader Albert Stegeman of Ringe, trading as Albert Stegeman e.K., under a spin-off plan dated 8 July 2024, and that the transfer took effect on 31 July 2024 when it was entered on the transferor's sheet. Hildebrand Stegeman of Ringe was sole managing director from formation until the entry of 6 June 2025, when Gabriele Hildegard Vette of Emlichheim was appointed sole managing director, with authority to contract with herself, and he ceased to hold the post. Janek Bloemendal of Ringe has held sole Prokura since 29 July 2024. Albert Stegemann is not named among those managing directors.

Two further companies at the same address appear in the parliamentary return. Vechtetal Milch Verwaltungs GmbH, HRB 219837, was entered on 21 December 2023 and is recorded as active. Vechtetal Immobilien GmbH & Co. KG, HRA 208932, was entered on 29 December 2023 and is also active; Abgeordnetenwatch classifies that participation under building and housing. The current Bundestag disclosure lists holdings in all three — the Immobilien partnership, Vechtetal Milch GmbH and the Verwaltungs GmbH, each at Ringe — without stating the size of the stakes.

## Party career before the Bundestag

### Junge Union

Albert Stegemann was born in Nordhorn on 9 March 1976. The biography published by the Bundestag, which notes that such texts rest on members' own statements, records that he joined the Junge Union in 1994. The Junge Union is the youth organisation of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Bavarian Christian Social Union. Under the federal statute the organisation publishes, membership is open from the age of 14 and does not require membership of either party. Only members who have not yet turned 35 may be elected or appointed to its offices, and membership ends on the 35th birthday, or, if an office is still held, when that office ends.

From 2003 to 2009 he was Bezirksvorsitzender (district chairman) of the Junge Union Osnabrück-Emsland. In Lower Saxony a Bezirksverband sits between the Kreisverbände and the Land organisation. The association, which now uses the name Junge Union Osnabrück-Emsland-Grafschaft Bentheim, comprises the Kreisverbände Aschendorf-Hümmling, Grafschaft Bentheim, Lingen, Meppen, Osnabrück-Land and Osnabrück-Stadt. It describes itself as the largest political youth organisation in the region, with almost 1,900 members; that figure is its current account, not a count for 2003–09. He was in his late twenties during that chairmanship. The term the biographies date to 2009 ended before his 35th birthday, on 9 March 2011. Neither the Bundestag notice nor the CDU profile that repeats it records a local or Kreis office in the Junge Union before the district chairmanship.

### CDU offices in the Emsland and Grafschaft Bentheim

He joined the CDU in 2002, eight years after the Junge Union and while he was still young enough to hold office in it. From 2010 he was a member of the Vorstand, the executive, of the CDU Bezirksverband Osnabrück-Emsland. The published notices name that seat but not a specialist function such as chairman, treasurer or secretary. The Bezirk has its office in Osnabrück and is composed of six Kreisverbände: Aschendorf-Hümmling, with its office in Papenburg; Grafschaft Bentheim, with its office in Nordhorn; Lingen; Meppen; Osnabrück-Land; and Osnabrück-Stadt. The arrangement places the rural district of Grafschaft Bentheim, on the Dutch border, in the same party district as the Emsland, where the CDU still keeps separate Kreisverbände for Aschendorf-Hümmling, Lingen and Meppen.

In February 2012 he was elected chairman of the CDU for the Samtgemeinde Emlichheim. The Samtgemeinde Emlichheim is a collective municipality in Grafschaft Bentheim. Its charter names Emlichheim as the administrative seat and lists the member municipalities as Emlichheim, Hoogstede, Laar and Ringe. The party body is the CDU-Samtgemeindeverband, not the municipal council. The association gives its address as Helwegstraße 29 in Ringe. A later Bundestag disclosure of outside earnings names his farm business as Landwirtschaftsbetrieb Albert Stegemann in Großringe, and the 19th-electoral-period biography states that he had managed the family dairy since 2001. Großringe is one of the historic settlements of the municipality of Ringe. On the association's board a co-opted member is Albert Stegeman, spelled with one n, whom the municipality lists as mayor of Ringe. Parliamentary and party profiles of the Bundestag member use Stegemann throughout.

The local chairmanship outlasted his move to Berlin. On 10 October 2018 the *Grafschafter Nachrichten* reported a members' meeting of the CDU-Samtgemeindeverband Emlichheim at the Heimathaus in Laar, at which he was confirmed as chairman for a further two years with 100 percent of the votes; Hannegret Scholten and Heinz Snippe were elected deputy chairs.

## Elections in Mittelems

### The constituency

Mittelems is constituency 31 for elections to the Bundestag in Lower Saxony. For the election of 23 February 2025 the Federal Returning Officer assigned it the whole of Landkreis Grafschaft Bentheim and part of Landkreis Emsland: the municipalities of Emsbüren, Geeste, Haselünne, Lingen (Ems), Meppen and Salzbergen, together with the joint municipalities (*Samtgemeinden*) of Freren, Herzlake, Lengerich and Spelle. The other Emsland municipalities fall in constituency 25, Unterems.

On 31 December 2023 the constituency contained 48 municipalities and covered 2,353.4 square kilometres, with 326,000 inhabitants and a density of 138.5 people per square kilometre. At the end of 2022, 84.9% of the area was vegetation or water and 15.1% settlement or transport. Among employees covered by social insurance on 30 June 2023, 39.0% worked in manufacturing and 1.9% in agriculture, forestry and fishing; the unemployment rate at the end of November 2024 was 3.3%. The larger towns include Nordhorn, the administrative seat of Grafschaft Bentheim, as well as Lingen and Meppen.

The direct seat has been held by the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) throughout the elections for which comparable official tables are published. The *Grafschafter Nachrichten*, reporting the 2017 count, described Mittelems as a constituency created in 1980 in which the CDU had until then always won the direct mandate. The 2013 result was 4.4 percentage points above the CDU first-vote share in the same constituency in 2009, when that share was already 54.6%. Albert Stegemann has been the directly elected member since the election of 22 September 2013.

### Results from 2013 to 2025

On 22 September 2013 Stegemann, for the CDU, received 99,705 first votes, 59.0% of valid votes and 4.4 points more than the CDU share in 2009. The Social Democratic Party (SPD) was second with 48,903 votes (29.0%); the *Grafschafter Nachrichten* identified Daniela De Ridder as the SPD candidate. Turnout was 74.7% of 228,051 people entitled to vote. Second votes gave the CDU 94,923 (56.1%) and the SPD 44,069 (26.0%). The Free Democratic Party (FDP) fell to 1.6% of first votes and 4.2% of second votes.

On 24 September 2017 he was returned with 95,815 first votes (53.6%, down 5.4 points), still a majority of the 178,624 valid first votes. De Ridder and the SPD took 47,107 votes (26.4%). The same local count named Jens Beeck (FDP), [Danny Meiners](/people/danny-meiners) of [Alternative for Germany](/organizations/alternative-for-germany) (AfD), Reinhard Prüllage of Alliance 90/[The Greens](/organizations/the-greens), Roberto Linguari of [Die Linke](/organizations/die-linke) and Harald Nützel of Die PARTEI; the official party totals were 10,089 (5.6%), 8,949 (5.0%), 8,900 (5.0%), 6,813 (3.8%) and 951 (0.5%). Turnout rose to 78.1% of 230,151 eligible voters. CDU second votes were 88,310 (49.4%), ahead of the SPD on 41,983 (23.5%).

On 26 September 2021 the CDU first-vote share fell by 13.2 points, to 72,523 votes (40.5%). The SPD, whose candidate the *Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung* identified as De Ridder, rose to 52,309 votes (29.2%). The Greens received 22,562 first votes (12.6%) and the FDP 17,466 (9.7%); the AfD was unchanged at 8,993 (5.0%) and Die Linke fell to 3,996 (2.2%). Turnout was 77.4% of 233,253 eligible voters. Second votes were closer than first votes: the CDU took 60,733 (33.8%, down 15.5 points) and the SPD 55,461 (30.9%, up 7.4 points). The *Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung* reported that De Ridder did not enter the Bundestag.

The early election of 23 February 2025 produced a final CDU first-vote total of 86,995, or 43.9% (up 3.4 points). The Federal Returning Officer records the elected candidate as Albert Stegeman; the Bundestag biography uses the spelling Stegemann. Dr Daniela Friederike De Ridder (SPD) was runner-up with 48,325 votes (24.4%, down 4.8 points). The AfD took 27,995 first votes (14.1%, up 9.1 points), the Greens 14,462 (7.3%, down 5.3), Die Linke 10,169 (5.1%, up 2.9) and the FDP 6,904 (3.5%, down 6.3). Tagesschau’s constituency chart named Meiners, Jeremy Zgrzebski, Dirk Niklas Wörsdörfer and Beeck as the AfD, Green, Left and FDP candidates. Turnout was 85.3% of 233,785 eligible voters, 7.9 points higher than in 2021. CDU second votes were 78,007 (39.3%, up 5.4 points), with the SPD on 42,166 (21.2%) and the AfD on 28,484 (14.3%).

Across the four elections the CDU remained ahead on both ballots. Its lead in first-vote share over the SPD was 30.0 points in 2013 (59.0% to 29.0%) and 27.2 points in 2017 (53.6% to 26.4%), narrowed to 11.3 points in 2021 (40.5% to 29.2%), and widened to 19.5 points in 2025 (43.9% to 24.4%). The majority of valid first votes recorded in 2013 and 2017 was not repeated in 2021 or 2025.

## Roles in the Bundestag

### Committees and working groups

Albert Stegemann has been a member of the Bundestag for the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) since 22 October 2013, the date the CDU/[Christian Social Union](/organizations/christian-social-union-in-bavaria) (CSU) group gives for the start of his membership in the 18th electoral period. He has held the direct mandate for Mittelems (Wahlkreis 031) in Lower Saxony through the 18th, 19th, 20th and 21st periods. The narrative on the current Bundestag page, which the parliament says rests on members' own statements, dates that mandate from September 2013, the month of the federal election, rather than from the opening of the new Bundestag.

In the 18th Bundestag the roll listed him as an ordinary member of the Committee on Labour and Social Affairs (Ausschuss für Arbeit und Soziales) and as a deputy member of the Committee on Food and Agriculture (Ausschuss für Ernährung und Landwirtschaft). On the afternoon of 29 January 2018 the CDU/CSU group elected him chair of its working group on food and agriculture and thus its agricultural-policy spokesperson (agrarpolitischer Sprecher). The *Grafschafter Nachrichten* reported 91.5 percent; *top agrar* reported the same share and wrote that he succeeded Franz-Josef Holzenkamp, who was no longer a member of the Bundestag, with Johannes Röring as Obmann of the working group. In the 19th period the roll shows an ordinary seat on food and agriculture and deputy seats on labour and social affairs and on the Committee on Economic Cooperation and Development (Ausschuss für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung).

After the 2021 election the group returned him to the spokespersonship. *agrarheute* reported on 27 December 2021 that he had been re-elected with 94.7 percent and remained working-group chair; the *Bayerisches Landwirtschaftliches Wochenblatt* had reported the re-election on 17 December. For the 20th period the roll again lists an ordinary seat on food and agriculture and a deputy seat on labour and social affairs, plus a deputy seat on the Subcommittee on Global Health (Unterausschuss Globale Gesundheit). Economic cooperation is not on that period's structured list.

In the 21st period, after the early election of late February 2025, the former food-and-agriculture committee appears as the Committee on Agriculture, Food and Heimat (Ausschuss für Landwirtschaft, Ernährung und Heimat). The current Bundestag page lists Stegemann only as a deputy member of that committee and of the Committee on Health (Ausschuss für Gesundheit). Its list of the agriculture committee's 30 ordinary members, published with the constituting sitting of 21 May 2025, includes [Johannes Steiniger](/people/johannes-steiniger) among the ten CDU/CSU members and does not include Stegemann. The transparency site Abgeordnetenwatch records the same sequence of full and deputy seats across the four terms. The Bundestag's published master data for members record him from 8 July 2025 as an ordinary member of a further parliamentary body, the board of trustees of the Stiftung Humanitäre Hilfe für durch Blutprodukte HIV-infizierte Personen. Two of that foundation's trustees are named by the Bundestag under the HIV Assistance Act.

The self-reported narrative on the current page still says that he has chaired the CDU/CSU food-and-agriculture working group since January 2018, that he is an ordinary member of the food-and-agriculture committee, and that he is a deputy on labour and social affairs and on economic cooperation. The archived 20th-period biography already carried that working-group sentence, and a claim to the economic-cooperation deputy seat, beside a structured roll that no longer listed economic cooperation. Apart from the committees, the CDU/CSU member page lists him in two internal circles, the Arbeitnehmergruppe and the Parlamentskreis Mittelstand.

### Deputy chair of the CDU/CSU group

On 13 May 2025 the CDU/CSU group completed its executive board (geschäftsführender Vorstand) and elected new working-group chairs. The press notice names Stegemann as a deputy parliamentary-group chair (stellvertretender Fraktionsvorsitzender) for food, agriculture and Heimat and for health — "Ernährung, Landwirtschaft und Heimat, Gesundheit" — and names Johannes Steiniger chair of the working group on Ernährung, Landwirtschaft und Heimat. Jens Spahn had been elected group chair on 5 May. Ems-Vechte-Welle, citing Stegemann's own announcement, reported 96 percent of the votes and said he would cover agriculture, food and Heimat and health, having previously been the agricultural-policy spokesperson. The trade paper *afz*, using the Agrar-Europe news service, reported the same 96 percent on 19 May. The faction notice itself gives no vote share. The *Grafschafter Nachrichten* of 13 May also states, in the visible standfirst, that he was elected deputy chair that Tuesday; the article body is behind a subscription wall.

*agrarheute* wrote that Steiniger became spokesperson because Stegemann had moved to the deputy chair, and that Stegemann had held the spokesperson role for seven years. That report, and the faction's naming of Steiniger as working-group chair on the day of the board election, is the later record set against the Bundestag biography's statement that Stegemann has chaired the food-and-agriculture working group continuously since January 2018. The group page now styles him "Stellvertretender Fraktionsvorsitzender für Landwirtschaft, Ernährung und Heimat, Gesundheit". Ems-Vechte-Welle, relaying his announcement, described the deputy chairs as supporting the group chair and coordinating the group's work in their fields. On the current Bundestag roll, his seats on the health committee and on agriculture, food and Heimat are deputy memberships, while Steiniger is among the ordinary CDU/CSU members of the agriculture committee.

## Agricultural and food policy

### Payments, fertiliser and plant protection

On 29 January 2018 the CDU/CSU group in the Bundestag elected Stegemann chair of its food-and-agriculture working group, with 91.5 percent of the vote.

In June 2021, under a Union–SPD majority, the Bundestag passed Germany’s laws for the next Common Agricultural Policy. Money shifted from direct payments to rural development was to rise from 6 to 8 percent in 2022, to 10 percent from 2023 and to 15 percent by 2026. Twelve percent of the envelope went to a top-up on the first hectares, and a quarter of first-pillar funds to eco-schemes. Agrarheute put the basic payment on a path from about €250 to about €150 a hectare. Stegemann’s published point was that the statutes could still change after the European Union trilogue. The German Farmers’ Association called the eco-schemes weak for grassland; BUND chair Olaf Bandt said organic farms and upland grassland must not carry the reform.

In May 2023 he rejected Agora Agrar directors Harald Grethe and Christine Chemnitz, who wanted the basic premium phased out from 2028 and replaced by payments for public goods. An exit, he said, was “absurd and remote from reality”: the premium was income, and already tied to environmental rules.

In August 2020 he, [Gitta Connemann](/people/gitta-connemann) and [Artur Auernhammer](/people/artur-auernhammer) asked agriculture minister [Julia Klöckner](/people/julia-klockner) to loosen the map of nitrate “red areas”, so one bad monitoring point would not paint a whole groundwater body red, and so the 50-milligram limit and a grid of one station per 50 square kilometres could be revisited. She refused before the cabinet adopted the instruction on 12 August: neither a denser network nor another limit was achievable, and farms could not opt out.

In September 2020 he said environment minister [Svenja Schulze](/people/svenja-schulze)’s draft insect-protection act used bans “with which, instead of the farmers, it is above all the pests that are protected”. In March 2023 he called an EU-wide halving of chemical pesticides a wrong path that would move production abroad. That November he cast the row over renewing glyphosate as politics for the voters of Alliance 90/The Greens. Less chemistry and more set-aside, as [Cem Özdemir](/people/cem-ozdemir) wanted, would cut yields without more biodiversity, and blanket bans would put cooperative schemes on protected land along the Ems and Vechte at risk.

### Animal husbandry and labelling

Klöckner’s Borchert commission, the Kompetenznetzwerk Nutztierhaltung, delivered recommendations in Berlin on 11 February 2020: more welfare and environmental protection without losing farm income, around a state label. In September 2021 Stegemann, [Silvia Breher](/people/silvia-breher), Connemann and Johannes Röring proposed a “Tierwohl-Ruck”. Final sellers, imports included, would pay into a private fund financing an estimated €3 billion to €4 billion a year in premiums for twenty years. Farmers who joined would have a legal claim; shops need not pass the charge on.

At a dairy breakfast in November 2022 he said farmers could not follow the commission if the economics failed. Green MP Anne-Monika Spallek answered that the Union had had 16 years, and that “nobody still wants a voluntary label today”. The coalition, she said, was writing a mandatory housing label instead.

The pork label that followed was limited. At a hearing on 16 January 2023, Alexander Hinrichs of the Initiative Tierwohl said omitting restaurants and processed meat would leave about two-thirds of sales unlabelled. [Martin Schulz](/people/martin-schulz), chair of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft bäuerliche Landwirtschaft, said categories alone would not pay for new barns. In April Stegemann called the draft a patchwork. On 22 August 2023 the commission stopped work for lack of finance. In September he called Özdemir the cabinet’s “minister of announcements” and said the Borchert papers, and those of the Zukunftskommission Landwirtschaft, had been shelved.

On 13 May 2025 the group made him a deputy chair for food, agriculture, homeland and health. In an Agra Europe interview he preferred investment grants to paying running welfare costs, even by state contract, and said this left Borchert “at least in part”. Stage 2, “Stallhaltung Plus”, should be fundable, because stages 3 to 5 had not sold, and “we cannot ignore 95 percent of the future market”. Schulz called that an affront: without aid for running costs, farms would not move up. Bioland president Jan Plagge said stage 2 would abandon a programme for stages 3 to 5 and undercut retailers. Gerald Wehde, its policy director, said tax money for stalls he did not count as welfare-oriented had no public acceptance.

### The traffic-light years and the 2024 protests

After the Federal [Constitutional Court](/organizations/constitutional-court)’s budget ruling, the cabinet of [Olaf Scholz](/people/mig-olaf-scholz) moved to end the agricultural-diesel rebate and the vehicle-tax break for farm machines. On 14 January 2024 Stegemann wrote in the Agrarzeitung that Özdemir was right: the protests were about “two years of failed traffic-light policy”, including cuts to the joint agricultural task, flat-rate VAT and the accident insurer, and no plan to pay for welfare barns. The diesel cut was “the drop that made the barrel overflow”; farmers must not be “sacrificial lambs” for repairing an unconstitutional budget. The Greens and the FDP, he wrote, quarrelled while the chancellor stayed silent.

On 15 January tractors massed at the Brandenburg Gate; the assembly authority counted 8,500 people. The coalition had already dropped the vehicle-tax change and phased the diesel cut, and Scholz ruled out more. Özdemir offered a welfare levy; finance minister Christian Lindner offered less bureaucracy. SPD agriculture politician [Franziska Kersten](/people/franziska-kersten), there that day, backed both and said the fertiliser rules might be eased. Tagesschau noted attempts by the AfD and right-wing extremists to attach themselves to the protests.

On 2 February the Bundestag passed the phased cut in the Second Budget Financing Act. The SPD, the Greens and the FDP voted for it; a Union motion to keep the rebate failed. In December Stegemann said a Union-led government would restore the rebate within 100 days, and put the yearly cost of abolition at about €440 million. On 6 November 2025 the Bundestag did restore it for diesel used from 2026, at the previous 21.48 cents a litre; use in 2025 stayed at 6.44 cents. An AfD motion for back pay lost, 126 votes to 436. Stegemann called the refund a correction of a “wrong decision of the voted-out traffic-light government”. Agriculture minister Alois Rainer and Joachim Rukwied of the German Farmers’ Association welcomed the vote.

## Health, labour and rural policy

### Labour and social affairs

In the 18th electoral term of the Bundestag (2013–2017) Stegemann was an ordinary member of the Committee on Labour and Social Affairs and only a deputy on agriculture. From the 19th term he was an ordinary member for food and agriculture and a deputy on labour and social affairs through the 20th term (2021–2025), when he was also a deputy on the subcommittee on global health. In the 21st term he left the labour committee. The CDU/CSU group still lists him in its employees’ group (Arbeitnehmergruppe) and the Parlamentskreis Mittelstand.

On 5 June 2014, in the first reading of the Tarifautonomiestärkungsgesetz, he backed a statutory minimum wage against exploitation but said later rates belonged with the social partners, and treated documentation duties as a risk to jobs. On 19 December 2014, opposing a Left motion to replace Hartz IV with a sanction-free income, he cited the pension package already passed, the minimum wage from 1 January 2015, and “43 million” employment relationships, against more than five million people without work in 2005. On 22 September 2016 he called amendments to the Arbeitnehmerüberlassungsgesetz a compromise: temporary agency work, under 3 per cent of employment, often bridged people out of unemployment, and equal pay was to apply after nine months, with room for collective agreements.

### Health care outside the cities

On 13 May 2025 the group elected him deputy chair for food, agriculture and Heimat, and for health. In the 21st Bundestag he is a deputy, not an ordinary member, of the health committee and of the Committee on Agriculture, Food and Heimat. Those files meet in Wahlkreis 31, Mittelems, in Lower Saxony: all of Grafschaft Bentheim and listed municipalities in Emsland. He sits, unpaid, on the steering group of the Gesundheitsregion Grafschaft Bentheim, based in Nordhorn, which aims to keep medical and nursing care, general practice, and hospice and palliative care in the countryside, and to support older people, including those with dementia.

On 6 March 2026 the Bundestag passed the Krankenhausreformanpassungsgesetz, amending the 2024 reform associated with Karl Lauterbach; the coalition voted for it and the AfD, the Greens and the Left against. The draft, first read in November 2025, widened exceptions and cooperation for rural care and dropped the original travel-time limits on when the Länder could use them. The day before, Stegemann said the changes should give the Länder time, keep inpatient care reliable and shorten radiology waits; health spokesperson [Simone Borchardt](/people/simone-borchardt) linked them to rural provision. Health minister [Nina Warken](/people/nina-warken) said basic and emergency care had to hold “whether people live in the country or in the city.”

On 15 October 2026 the Bundestag adopted the emergency-care reform, with the CDU/CSU, the SPD and the Greens in favour and the AfD and the Left abstaining. It provides integrated emergency centres—hospital emergency department, on-call practice and triage—and a digital link between 112 and 116 117. Stegemann said emergency departments and ambulances should no longer take cases better treated in surgeries; Union speaker [Hans Theiss](/people/hans-theiss) said 98 per cent of people should reach a centre within 30 minutes by car.

On long-term care insurance he has argued for greater use of private means. On 29 May 2026 he told *Bild* there could be “no inheritance-protection programme at the public’s expense,” and that assets, including an owner-occupied home, should be drawn on before the community pays. *Welt* reported that Warken expected a combined deficit of €22.5 billion over two years. He told the *Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung* that the threshold at which adult children help pay for a parent’s nursing-home place—above €100,000 gross a year—could be lowered. Eugen Brysch of the Deutsche Stiftung Patientenschutz called them “absurd proposals” that frightened older people; VdK president Verena Bentele said care already made people poor. Asked in August 2026 about a planned cut in pension credits for family carers, he wrote that home care had to remain a mainstay and still needed debate, while calling the scheme only partial cover and a deep reform unavoidable.

## Outside earnings and public debate

### What the disclosures record

Members of the Bundestag may keep another occupation, but they must notify the President of paid activities alongside the mandate, posts in companies and associations, and holdings in partnerships or corporations. Since rules expanded on 19 October 2021 and placed in the Members of the Bundestag Act, income from a notifiable activity is published to the cent once it exceeds 1,000 euros in a month or, if not, 3,000 euros in a year. Where those receipts are turnover, the Act requires profit before tax instead of the gross sum. Several of the largest published lines have nevertheless been gross business receipts. Business Insider reported that the self-employed may, in justified cases, disclose turnover rather than profit.

A joint count by abgeordnetenwatch and [Der Spiegel](/organizations/der-spiegel), cut off on 30 September 2024, put Albert Stegemann of the CDU at the top of notified figures for the 2021–2025 term. The [Norddeutscher Rundfunk](/organizations/norddeutscher-rundfunk) gave the sum as 7,851,118.23 euros. With abgeordnetenwatch, it described that sum as the gross turnover of his dairy at Ringe in Lower Saxony, from the sale of cows' milk, not a salary or a personal profit. He has said employees running the farm since he entered the Bundestag in 2013 produced that turnover, which is not private income. The same review found some outside receipt for 337 of 733 members and a combined total above 51 million euros, which abgeordnetenwatch called heavily distorted because unlike figures are added together.

The names below him show the mix. Sebastian Brehm of the CSU, a tax adviser on the finance committee, was second at about 7.12 million euros, which he described as gross fees largely worked by staff. Alexander Engelhard, a CSU miller, notified about 3.58 million euros that he said was turnover including VAT. In Lower Saxony the next line was [Fritz Güntzler](/people/fritz-guntzler)'s, about 1.23 million euros, mostly profit distributions from two professional firms rather than sales. By 17 February 2025, with later filings in, Business Insider ranked Brehm first at 8.29 million euros and Stegemann second at 7.85 million.

When he left the management has been stated in more than one way. In October 2024 the NDR, using his website, wrote that he had given up the Geschäftsführung at the beginning of that year; t-online quoted him saying that in 2024 he had withdrawn from it completely. The text on his site, as Business Insider quoted it the following February, says he was managing director until the beginning of 2025 and that what he filed were the farm's accounts — turnover, not private earnings. In June 2026 abgeordnetenwatch reported that he was notifying no outside income in the new term, that a cousin had taken over the running of the farm, and that he described the change as made for tax reasons and unrelated to the mandate. He remains the owner. His Bundestag biography lists holdings in Vechtetal Immobilien GmbH & Co. KG, Vechtetal Milch GmbH and Vechtetal Milch Verwaltungs GmbH, all in Ringe, and no paid activity beside the mandate. Whether those stakes will again produce notifiable income was still open, abgeordnetenwatch wrote, because current annual accounts were not yet available.

### The conflict-of-interest argument

The rules are meant to let voters judge whether outside interests could affect how a mandate is used. Abgeordnetenwatch set the dairy turnover next to Stegemann's seat on the committee for food and agriculture, and noted parliamentary questions on how much milk and dairy products are consumed in Germany. The point, made without a finding that he had broken a rule, is that the owner of a milk business was taking part in policy for the market that business sells into. The same count put similar questions to other members whose large filings sat near their briefs, including Brehm on the finance committee and Engelhard on the environment committee.

Stegemann's published reply is that economic interests must not influence the exercise of a mandate. He writes that a link would arise if he took a position on a bill with a direct bearing on the farm, and he gives the milk quota as the example. In such cases, he says, he declares a possible conflict orally in committee, where the minutes record it, and he has registered his rapporteur subjects with the CDU/CSU group, which checks them as well. He supports the disclosure rules, and argues that "side income" does not cleanly separate a lecture fee from the turnover of a family farm a member does not simply close for the length of a term.

Later rankings show that one farm is not the whole regime. In June 2026 abgeordnetenwatch and Der Spiegel found an outside receipt or a benefit in kind for 232 of 630 members, totalling more than 10.6 million euros since the new term began. The highest line was about 2.7 million euros notified by [Ophelia Nick](/people/ophelia-nick) of the Greens, from company shares she had inherited, not from a job. Stegemann's turnover no longer appeared. The order therefore depends on whether a member notifies profit distributions, professional fees or, as with the Ringe dairy in the previous term, gross sales.

## Other offices

### Banks, quality schemes and foundations

The Bundestag biography lists five honorary posts Albert Stegemann holds outside Parliament, in companies, a public-law body and foundations.

He is a member of the representative assembly of Grafschafter Volksbank eG in Nordhorn, a registered cooperative supervised by the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (GnR 130002, Amtsgericht Osnabrück). Under section 43a of the Cooperatives Act, a cooperative with more than 1,500 members may use elected representatives in place of a general meeting of all members.

At QS Qualität und Sicherheit GmbH in Bonn he sits on the board of trustees. QS runs a business-led food-safety scheme from farm to retail, which it says covers about 165,000 firms; the board advises management on basic questions of quality assurance and includes politicians, business, scientists and consumer representatives. The company's list names Stegemann for the CDU/CSU, with deputies of the Social Democratic Party, Alliance 90/The Greens and Die Linke.

The biography also records him on the steering group of the Gesundheitsregion Grafschaft Bentheim in Nordhorn. The district says it has been an officially recognised health region since 2015, under a Lower Saxony programme for linking local health actors, coordinated by the public-health office, with priorities of child health, rural medical and nursing care, and care in old age.

He is a member of the board of trustees of the Ludwig-Windthorst-Stiftung in Lingen-Holthausen. The Lower Saxony foundation register dates recognition to 6 September 2005 and gives the seat as Lingen, in Emsland, at Gerhard-Kues-Straße 16, also the address of the Ludwig-Windthorst-Haus, a Catholic social academy. The registered purpose is support for science, education, and art and culture through grants and the foundation's own events. The foundation says an association of 1982 was converted in 2005 to commemorate Ludwig Windthorst, the nineteenth-century [Centre Party](/organizations/centre-party) parliamentarian. Its trustees, who elect the executive board, include Stegemann.

He sits on the advisory board of the Vitus Trägerstiftung in Meppen, recognised on 17 August 2011 and addressed at Nödiker Straße 101. Its registered purpose is charitable support for people who depend on others because of a physical, mental or psychological condition, together with youth welfare, care of the elderly and education. The foundation calls itself the main shareholder of the Vitus operating companies. The advisory board, which appoints and supervises the executive board, lists Stegemann as a member and Helmut Knurbein as chair.

### Constituency offices

The biography lists three constituency offices: Castellstraße 1, 49808 Lingen; Kolpingstraße 5, 49716 Meppen; and Bahnhofstr. 21a, 48529 Nordhorn, in Lingen and Meppen in Emsland and in Nordhorn, the seat of Grafschaft Bentheim. Section 12 of the Members of the Bundestag Act provides a monthly expense allowance for mandate-related costs, including rent and materials for constituency offices away from the Bundestag's seat, with the amount and further rules set in the federal budget and by the Council of Elders.

## Dated facts

_No published facts on this page yet._

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/people/albert-stegemann