# Svenja Stadler

# Svenja Stadler

Svenja Stadler (born 26 August 1976 in Oldenburg) is a German politician of the [Social Democratic Party of Germany](/organizations/social-democratic-party-of-germany) and a member of the Bundestag from Lower Saxony. The chamber's biography, compiled from members' own disclosures, records that she is married with two children and lists her occupation as senior public-relations consultant. She is the SPD candidate in Harburg (Wahlkreis 36) and sits in the 21st Bundestag by way of the Lower Saxony state list.

Stadler joined the SPD in 1994 and, while still in Oldenburg, served on a local branch executive, the executive of the Young Socialists in the SPD and the sub-district executive. She took the Abitur in 1997 at the Liebfrauenschule in Oldenburg and from 1997 to 2000 trained there as a Werbekauffrau specializing in public relations. From 2000 she worked in Hamburg as a public-relations consultant and team leader, advising companies mainly in food, consumer electronics and telecommunications. The Bundestag's register of disclosable interests records a pre-mandate post as senior PR consultant at Straub & Linardatos GmbH in Hamburg, with a contractual right to return.

She has been a member of the Bundestag since the 18th legislative term, which began when the newly elected house met on 22 October 2013, and she has sat through the 18th, 19th, 20th and 21st terms. At the 2021 federal election the federal returning officer counted 49,773 first votes (31.0 percent) for the SPD in Harburg and 46,711 (29.1 percent) for the [Christian Democratic Union of Germany](/organizations/christian-democratic-union-of-germany). Contemporary coverage identified Stadler as the SPD candidate who won the direct mandate ahead of the CDU's Michael Grosse-Brömer, the holder of the seat in 2017. In the 2025 federal election the Harburg district returning committee's final count gave the direct mandate to Dr. Cornell Babendererde of the CDU, with 57,718 first votes (33.2 percent); Stadler received 45,738 (26.3 percent) and re-entered on the state list. The SPD sub-district of Harburg reported that a state convention on 4 January 2025 placed her sixth on the Lower Saxony list.

From 2013 to 2021 she was the SPD parliamentary group's spokesperson for civic engagement. In the 21st Bundestag she is a full member of the Budget Committee, the Audit Committee and the Committee on Agriculture, Food and Heimat, and a deputy member of the Health Committee. The SPD group also lists her, from 25 June 2025, as a member of the body set up under the law that finances the Bundeswehr and its special fund. Since 2021 she has chaired that group's AWO parliamentarians' circle and the SPD sub-district of Landkreis Harburg. On 27 September 2025 a congress of the SPD district of Hanover elected her co-chair with [Grant Hendrik Tonne](/people/grant-hendrik-tonne); she received 188 yes votes, 87.85 percent of the ballots cast. She chaired the board of trustees of the Elly Heuss-Knapp Foundation, the Deutsches Müttergenesungswerk, from November 2019 until 28 May 2026, when the trustees elected Katja Mast as her successor.

## Early life and career before parliament

### Childhood and schooling in Oldenburg

Svenja Stadler was born on 26 August 1976 in Oldenburg (Oldenburg), the independent city of that name in Lower Saxony. The biography published by the Bundestag, which the parliament states is drawn from members' own information, records that she is married and has two children, without naming her spouse or the children. In a May 2013 interview with the Seevetal edition of the *Kreiszeitung Wochenblatt*, she said that her parents had taken a strong interest in politics and had brought her and a brother up to think independently. At that time she was living with her husband and two young children in Glüsingen, a locality of Seevetal in the district of Harburg.

She passed the *Abitur* in 1997 at the Liebfrauenschule in Oldenburg. The school is a *Gymnasium* for girls and boys sponsored by the Roman Catholic Church in the Oldenburg part of the Diocese of Münster.

### Training and work as a public-relations consultant

From 1997 to 2000 Stadler trained in Oldenburg as a *Werbekauffrau*, an advertising clerk, specializing in public relations. The biography issued by the Bundestag group of the Social Democratic Party of Germany gives that trained occupation and states that from 2000 she worked in Hamburg as a consultant and team leader. On her own account, as published by the Bundestag, the work consisted of advising companies, chiefly in food, consumer electronics and telecommunications, on press and public relations; the profile heads her entry with the title senior PR consultant (*Senior-PR-Beraterin*). In May 2013 the *Wochenblatt* reported that she had by then spent eight years at one Hamburg public-relations agency, which the paper did not name.

In the register of disclosable interests, the Bundestag identifies her professional activity before membership as senior PR consultant at Straub & Linardatos GmbH in Hamburg, with a right to return to the firm.

Straub & Linardatos was founded in Hamburg in January 2004 by Rüdiger Straub and Ion Linardatos. The trade service *kress* reported the launch that February: Straub, then 42, had been deputy editor-in-chief of *Bild* until 1999 and had since worked in publishing management, while Linardatos, then 39, had last been in the management of Bönig & Yamaoka. *PR Report* later added earlier work by Linardatos at MMK.

A 2006 *PR-Journal* account said that since the January 2004 start the owners had taken on more than ten national clients and 13 permanent staff and had tripled turnover in the second business year. When Linardatos left at the end of 2015, *PR Report* wrote that the firm had built the telecommunications brand Alice and had advised Deutsche Fernsehlotterie and Deutsche BKK. About 20 specialists then worked for a similar number of clients, among them Hamburg Airport, opodo.de, Valora Holding Germany and Telefónica Germany. Straub bought Linardatos's shares and kept the office in a former spice mill on Kirchentwiete in Ottensen; he described the practice as corporate communications, brand and lifestyle public relations, crisis communications, and content and media produced for clients.

*Horizont* reported in January 2014 that the agency, on the market since 2004, then had about 30 employees, a new Stuttgart office and fee income of 1.5 million euros in 2012, organized in teams for tourism, lifestyle and brands, telecommunications and IT, airports and aviation, and health. In April 2016 the magazine reported that, after the co-founder's exit, the firm had been renamed Straub & Straub and was run by Straub and Tina Fahrenbach; it then had about 20 employees, fee income of about 1.5 million euros in 2015, and clients including Hamburg Airport, Opodo and Maui Jim. *PR-Journal* described the renamed agency as a member of the industry association GPRA, still working in brand and product public relations, corporate and crisis communications, and digital content.

## Positions in the Social Democratic Party

In the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), the organisational statute makes the Bezirk the basic unit of the party. The SPD is divided into local branches (Ortsvereine), sub-districts (Unterbezirke) and Bezirke, with political decisions formed from the bottom upward; where a Land has more than one Bezirk, those districts may form a state association for Land politics without replacing the Bezirke as the organisational base. In Lower Saxony the Bezirke Braunschweig, Hannover, Nord-Niedersachsen and Weser-Ems form that association, seated in Hanover.

### Early roles in Oldenburg and the Jusos

Stadler joined the SPD in 1994 in Oldenburg. Her own biographical account says that, while she was still at school and then in training there, she sat on a local-branch executive, on the executive of the Young Socialists in the SPD (Jusos), the party's youth organisation, and on the Oldenburg sub-district executive. Later parliamentary and district biographies do not repeat those early posts.

### Offices in the Harburg district and the Hanover SPD region

The same account lists her, after she moved to Seevetal in the Harburg district, on the executive of the Seevetal local branch from 2010 to 2021 and as deputy chair of the SPD Unterbezirk Landkreis Harburg from 2013. On 27 April 2021 the sub-district congress elected her chair in succession to Thomas Grambow of Neu Wulmstorf, who had held the post since 2015 and was then elected a deputy.

In April 2023, 63 delegates at Burg Seevetal in Hittfeld re-elected her by a large majority. Klaus-Dieter Feindt, chair from 1999 to 2015 and then treasurer, left the board and was named honorary chair. In March 2025, again at Burg Seevetal, she was re-elected with 85.7 percent of the votes, with Frithjof Brandt and Marcel du Moulin as deputies.

The Bundestag biography, drawn from members' own statements, records her on the SPD Bezirksvorstand Hannover from 2015 and as a deputy chair from 2019. At the district congress in Lüneburg on 22 and 23 June 2019 she received 186 votes (85.3 percent) as a deputy chair, beside Ulrich Watermann and Amina Yousaf, while [Matthias Miersch](/people/matthias-miersch) was elected chair with 95.48 percent. On 24 May 2025 the state congress in Wolfenbüttel elected her a deputy state chair. The local report said [Olaf Lies](/people/olaf-lies) became state chair with 96.4 percent and described her result only as broad support, without a separate tally.

### Election as co-chair of the Hanover SPD district

Before the autumn congress, the newsletter *Rundblick* reported that Stadler and Grant Hendrik Tonne, Lower Saxony's economy minister, were the designated joint chairs of a Bezirk running from Harburg to Göttingen and from Nienburg to Celle.

On 27 September 2025, at the Karriere Campus in Hanover, delegates elected them co-chairs. The Bezirk's count gave Stadler 188 yes votes (87.85 percent) from 214 ballots, with 26 against and no abstentions, and Tonne 163 yes votes (79.13 percent) from 206 ballots, with 24 against and 19 abstentions. Miersch, chair since 2019, did not stand. The *Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung* called the outcome a change at the head of the district and wrote that Tonne was extending his position in the Lower Saxony SPD. Minister-President Olaf Lies and Defence Minister [Boris Pistorius](/people/boris-pistorius) addressed the congress, which also adopted resolutions against antisemitism, in solidarity with the Turkish opposition, and in support of Ukraine.

## Bundestag candidacies and election results

Harburg (constituency 36) is the federal district made up of the whole Harburg district in Lower Saxony. The district lies in the northeast of the state, directly beside Hamburg, with the Elbe to the north and the Lüneburg Heath to the south. Svenja Stadler of the Social Democratic Party of Germany was its SPD candidate at the federal elections of 2013, 2017, 2021 and 2025, each time also placed on the party’s Lower Saxony state list.

Voters cast a first vote for a constituency candidate and a second vote for a party’s state list. Until the electoral law was changed in 2023, whoever led the first-vote count took the constituency seat, and further seats were filled down the state list after those constituency winners had been set against the party’s second-vote allocation in the Land. Stadler lost Harburg in 2013 and 2017 and entered the Bundestag from the list; in 2021 she won the constituency; in 2025 she lost it and returned on the list.

### List mandates in 2013 and 2017

In 2013 the district had 194,856 eligible voters and turnout of 78.4 percent. Michael Grosse-Brömer of the Christian Democratic Union, the sitting member, won 68,458 first votes, 45.2 percent, up 4.6 points on 2009. Stadler, eighth on the SPD state list, polled 47,908 votes, 31.6 percent, up 1.0 point. Other first-vote shares were 7.1 percent for Alliance 90/[The Greens](/organizations/the-greens), 5.7 percent for [the Alternative](/organizations/the-alternative) for Germany, 3.6 percent for [Die Linke](/organizations/die-linke) and 3.4 percent for the Free Democratic Party; on second votes the CDU led the SPD by 42.8 to 28.3 percent. She took her seat in the 18th Bundestag from the state list, not the constituency.

In 2017 there were 199,081 eligible voters and turnout of 81.3 percent. Grosse-Brömer held the seat with 65,223 first votes, 40.6 percent, down 4.6 points, against Stadler’s 44,017, 27.4 percent, down 4.2 points. She was again eighth on the state list. The AfD rose to 9.2 percent of first votes, just ahead of the Greens on 9.1 percent, with the FDP on 6.5 percent and Die Linke on 5.4 percent; second votes were 35.9 percent for the CDU and 22.0 percent for the SPD. With the constituency remaining Grosse-Brömer’s, Stadler again entered through the list.

### Direct mandate in 2021

For 2021 the SPD placed Stadler fourth on the Lower Saxony list. On 26 September she won the constituency for the first time. Turnout was 80.1 percent of 201,740 eligible voters. She received 49,773 first votes, 31.0 percent, up 3.6 points, 3,062 votes ahead of Grosse-Brömer, then parliamentary business manager of the CDU/CSU Bundestag group, who fell to 46,711 votes and 29.1 percent, down 11.5 points. He had held the seat at the three previous elections. Nadja Weippert of the Greens was third on 15.0 percent, followed by the FDP on 9.0 percent and the AfD on 6.9 percent. Second votes moved the same way: 29.1 percent for the SPD and 24.8 percent for the CDU. Her seat in the 20th Bundestag was the direct mandate.

### Return via the state list in 2025

The 2025 election was the first held under the Federal Elections Act as amended in 2023. The Bundestag was fixed at 630 members, overhang and compensatory seats were abolished, and second votes alone set each party’s number of seats. A first-vote lead produces a seat only when the party’s second-vote total in the Land covers it. The Federal [Constitutional Court](/organizations/constitutional-court) upheld that coverage rule on 30 July 2024. Stadler stood sixth on the SPD’s Lower Saxony list and again in Harburg.

The district election committee adopted a final result whose percentage shares were unchanged from election night. Turnout was 86.4 percent of 202,671 eligible voters, the highest in Lower Saxony, against 83.4 percent statewide. Dr. Cornell-Anette Babendererde of the CDU won the constituency with 57,718 first votes, 33.2 percent, up 4.1 points. Stadler was second with 45,738 votes, 26.3 percent, down 4.7 points. The AfD took 16.6 percent of first votes, the Greens 10.6 percent, Die Linke 5.9 percent and the FDP 3.5 percent. On second votes the CDU led with 30.4 percent, the SPD fell to 20.5 percent and the AfD reached 16.8 percent.

Stadler’s defeat in the constituency meant the coverage rule did not decide her own seat. On the preliminary final count, the SPD received 17 seats in Lower Saxony, 15 of them won in constituencies, so two list places remained; they went to [Anja Troff-Schaffarzyk](/people/anja-troff-schaffarzyk), listed fourth, and Stadler, listed sixth, the candidates above them having already won constituencies. The federal returning officer records Stadler as elected to the 21st Bundestag from place 6 on the Lower Saxony list, with constituency 36 as her district candidacy, and Babendererde as the directly elected member.

## Committees and roles in the Bundestag

### Family committee and the civic-engagement subcommittee

In the 18th Bundestag (2013–2017), Svenja Stadler of the SPD was an ordinary member of the Committee on Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth and of its Subcommittee on Civic Engagement (Unterausschuss „Bürgerschaftliches Engagement“). The same membership list recorded her as the SPD parliamentary group’s Obfrau in that subcommittee, the group’s coordinator there rather than the subcommittee chair. She was a deputy member of the Digital Agenda Committee, the Committee on Labour and Social Affairs, and the Committee on Economic Affairs and Energy.

She remained an ordinary member of the family committee and of the civic-engagement subcommittee throughout the 19th term (2017–2021). The archived biography, whose narrative the Bundestag states is based on members’ own information, says that she had been the SPD group’s Obfrau in the subcommittee, and its spokesperson for civic engagement, since 2013. The current biography dates that spokesperson role from 2013 to 2021. Separately, the SPD parliamentary group lists her for 2017–2021 as deputy spokesperson of its working group on family affairs, senior citizens, women and youth.

Other deputy seats changed during the term. On 10 July 2019 the biography still listed deputy membership of the Budget Committee, Labour and Social Affairs, and the Digital Agenda Committee; by 12 November 2019 the labour seat was gone, while the Digital Agenda seat remained and was still listed on 19 December 2020 and 27 May 2021.

### Budget committee, audit committee and rapporteurs

The Budget Committee (Haushaltsausschuss) is the lead committee on the federal budget draft. For each Einzelplan, the chapter of the budget covering one constitutional organ or ministry, it names one rapporteur (Berichterstatter or Berichterstatterin) from each parliamentary group. After the draft is tabled, those rapporteurs examine that plan’s financing and hold Berichterstattergespräche with the ministry concerned; the results are the main basis for the committee’s separate recommendation to the plenary on that Einzelplan. A 2018 study by the Bundestag’s research service adds that the group whips in the committee (Obleute) normally name the rapporteurs for a whole term; a lead rapporteur organizes the talks, but each rapporteur for a plan is entitled to the same information from the ministry, with the Federal [Ministry of Finance](/organizations/ministry-of-finance) and the Bundesrechnungshof taking part.

Stadler joined this work as a deputy member of the Budget Committee. In the 22 November 2018 debate on the 2019 budget, the presidency named her among the rapporteurs for Einzelplan 17, the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth, with one member from each other group. Her status on the committee later changed. The biography of 19 December 2020 lists her as an ordinary member of both the Budget Committee and the Audit Committee (Rechnungsprüfungsausschuss), while she was still an ordinary member of the family committee and the civic-engagement subcommittee. By 27 May 2021 it also listed ordinary membership of the parliamentary accompaniment body on the [COVID-19 pandemic](/drivers/covid-19-pandemic) (Parlamentarisches Begleitgremium Covid-19-Pandemie). The archived biography for the end of the 19th term carries the same offices: ordinary membership of the family committee, the Budget Committee, the COVID-19 body, the Audit Committee and the civic-engagement subcommittee, and a deputy seat only on the Digital Agenda Committee.

In the 20th Bundestag (2021–2025) the archived biography lists her as an ordinary member of the Budget Committee and the Audit Committee and as a deputy member of the Health Committee (Gesundheitsausschuss). It no longer lists the family committee or the civic-engagement subcommittee. The biography places the end of the civic-engagement spokesperson role in 2021 and states that, from 2021, she chaired the SPD group’s parliamentarians’ group for the Arbeiterwohlfahrt (AWO); the SPD group records the same chairmanship. On 24 November 2022, in the debate on the 2023 budget, the presidency named her as a rapporteur for Einzelplan 15, the Federal Ministry of Health, as the SPD member of a cross-group team. The committee’s recommendation on that budget law also names her as a Berichterstatterin.

### Memberships in the 21st Bundestag

The Budget Committee of the 21st Bundestag was constituted on 21 May 2025 with 42 members; the Bundestag’s account of that meeting includes Stadler among the eight SPD members. Her current biography lists her as an ordinary member of the Committee on Agriculture, Food and Heimat, the Budget Committee and the Audit Committee, and as a deputy member of the Health Committee. On the SPD group’s own lists for the 21st term she is a member of the budget working group from 21 May 2025 and of the agriculture, food and Heimat working group from 25 June 2025, and a deputy member of the health working group from 15 January 2026.

On 26 June 2025 the plenary elected her to the body under section 5(4) of the Bundeswehr Financing and Special Fund Act (Gremium gemäß § 5 Absatz 4 des Bundeswehrfinanzierungs- und -sondervermögensgesetzes). The minutes record 470 votes in favour, above the majority of 316 members of the House required for election. The Bundestag describes the body as drawn from the Budget Committee and informed by the Federal [Ministry of Defence](/organizations/ministry-of-defence) about the special fund for the Bundeswehr. On 17 September 2025 the presidency again named her among the rapporteurs for the health ministry’s Einzelplan 15.

## Civic engagement and civil-society funding

### Spokesperson for civic engagement

From 2013 to 2021 Svenja Stadler was spokesperson of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) group in the Bundestag for civic engagement (*bürgerschaftliches Engagement*) and the group’s *Obfrau* on the Subcommittee on Civic Engagement of the family committee. Activity reports for the 18th term, whose subcommittee was constituted on 12 March 2014, and for the 19th term list her as SPD *Obfrau*. The subcommittee could not pass laws. In the 18th term it examined volunteering with refugees, including attacks on volunteers, and both term reports called for a standing full committee rather than dialogue alone.

In a July 2021 article she described the grand coalition agenda she had worked on as a revised law on charitable status (*Gemeinnützigkeitsrecht*), less bureaucracy, an engagement foundation, and stronger federal and youth volunteer services. A modernised charity law, she wrote, should give organisations legal certainty and avoid turning volunteering into paid work. On the Annual Tax Act 2020 she treated the rise in the instructor allowance from €2,400 to €3,000 and the volunteering allowance from €720 to €840 as recognition, while warning that combining them with mini-jobs could undercut the minimum wage. That act, as the foundation later described it, also set a €45,000 threshold for small economic activities. In January 2020 she was a Budget Committee rapporteur on the bills establishing the foundation; the committee put its annual need at €30 million.

### Democracy-promotion programmes and nonprofit law

*Demokratie leben!*, a programme of the family ministry since 2015, funds civil-society work on democracy, diversity and prevention of extremism. The ministry describes funding periods for 2015–2019 and 2020–2024, and a third, refocused period from January 2025 to 2032. For 2024 parliament provided €182 million, of which €171.8 million was paid out.

A *Demokratiefördergesetz* was meant to replace short project grants with a statutory mandate. A draft linked to interior minister Horst Seehofer and family minister [Franziska Giffey](/people/franziska-giffey) failed after the Union blocked it, reportedly for fear of funding left-wing extremist groups. On 14 December 2022 the traffic-light cabinet of Nancy Faeser and Lisa Paus adopted another draft: longer grants, including for adults, a criteria catalogue, and a sum still set each year in the budget. The Free Democratic Party demanded clearer rules on eligible work and withheld agreement. By July 2024 the *Frankfurter Rundschau* reported no settlement in sight; finance minister Christian Lindner had called an economic turnaround “the best democracy-promotion law one can have.” The bill was not passed. On 27 June 2025 SPD member [Felix Döring](/people/felix-doring) said the FDP had blocked the project and that the SPD group still sought the law, while Stadler’s demand that day was to modernise charity law so civic engagement is supported rather than restricted.

### Debate over public funding of NGOs

The same sitting gave a first reading to an [Alternative for Germany](/organizations/alternative-for-germany) bill, Drucksache 21/577, to forbid federal grants to “front organisations” of parties. An organisation that campaigned for or against a party, or adopted substantial party demands as its own aims, would be presumed to be such a front. AfD member [Sebastian Maack](/people/sebastian-maack) called *Demokratie leben!* misuse of tax money against the opposition and cited a funded group which, he said, described its task as destroying the AfD. CDU/CSU speaker [Florian Oßner](/people/florian-ossner) said funded bodies that drop party-political neutrality become party extensions, cited European Court of Auditors criticism of opaque EU grants to NGOs, and called the AfD text too sweeping, while saying that anyone who wants independence from the state cannot claim state money. [Philip Hoffmann](/people/philip-hoffmann) called content-based cuts an attack on democratic culture, but wanted neutrality and reviewable rules rather than a ban.

Stadler told Maack she thought he had a problem with a diverse society. The proposal, she said, reminded her of how Hungary under [Viktor Orbán](/people/mig-actor-viktor-orban) and Russia under [Vladimir Putin](/people/vladimir-putin) proceed against NGOs, and showed the AfD’s view of a “militant democracy” and civil society: “You simply want to silence critical opinions, and we will not allow that.” She argued that unions, churches, citizens’ initiatives and sports clubs do work the state would otherwise have to staff, and that ending subsidies would burden the federal budget “many times over” and weaken democracy and social security. The SPD group therefore rejected the bill: “Instead of restricting an independent and critical civil society, we wish to modernise the law on charitable status so that civic engagement is supported and strengthened.” Members of the SPD, the CDU/CSU and Alliance 90/The Greens applauded. The House referred the bill to the Budget Committee in the lead and to the legal-affairs and culture committees.

## Family policy, care work and the health budget

### Family-ministry budgets and caregiving

In the 19th Bundestag (2017–2021), Stadler, of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), was an ordinary member of the Budget Committee and a rapporteur for Einzelplan 17, the chapter of the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth. On 28 November 2019 she said the 2020 chapter exceeded €12 billion, about 80 percent of it statutory benefits — Elterngeld, the maintenance advance, the supplementary child allowance and child benefit — with youth and federal voluntary services above €327 million. She rejected a compulsory service year then discussed in the Christian Democratic Union.

On 10 December 2020 she called the 2021 family budget a record of more than €13 billion, up by more than €885 million under the COVID-19 pandemic. The figures she gave included €100 million for nonprofit child and youth welfare, a further €235 million for Elterngeld, €485.5 million for the supplementary child allowance, just under €1 billion for the maintenance advance, and €150 million for “Demokratie leben!”.

In the 21st Bundestag family policy shares a ministry with education. At the first reading on 10 September 2026, Einzelplan 17 was drafted at €15.48 billion, down from €16.66 billion, mainly on lower statutory family benefits; Elterngeld was to fall from €7.51 billion to €7.07 billion. Stadler said savings of about €1.19 billion gave her “Bauchschmerzen”, but that early-childhood education and the Child and Youth Plan had been protected. A CDU speaker called the Elterngeld cuts painful; Green and Left speakers called cuts affecting families and single parents the wrong signal.

### The Müttergenesungswerk

The Elly Heuss-Knapp Foundation – Deutsches Müttergenesungswerk was founded in 1950 by Elly Heuss-Knapp. Under Book V of the Social Code, insured people have a claim, where medically required, to preventive care (§ 24) and rehabilitation (§ 41) in a Müttergenesungswerk facility or an equivalent one, including mother–child and, in suitable clinics, father–child measures. The foundation says five welfare associations work under its roof, with counselling, stays in more than 70 recognised clinics for mothers, fathers and family caregivers, and local aftercare.

Stadler joined in 2018 as one of five independent members and was elected chair unanimously, succeeding Kirsten Soyke; the foundation announced the election on 6 November 2019. The Bundestag’s register of outside activities records the unpaid chairmanship as ending on 21 May 2026, while the self-reported biography still listed her as chair. On 28 May 2026 the foundation announced that Katja Mast, an SPD member and parliamentary state secretary, had been elected chair unanimously after more than six years. The notice says the board credited her with guiding the foundation through the pandemic — the board’s own assessment — and quotes Stadler as saying the role had “always been very close to my heart”.

### Health-budget rapporteurship

In the 20th Bundestag Stadler was the SPD rapporteur for Einzelplan 15, the Federal Ministry of Health. On 24 November 2022 she said negotiations had raised the 2023 health budget to €24.5 billion, mainly federal payments to the health fund for pandemic burdens and vaccine procurement of nearly €2.4 billion, plus more for digitisation, prevention and international health. On 15 December 2023, after the Federal Constitutional Court’s ruling on off-budget funds, she defended a supplementary-budget hardship rule for hospitals, nursing homes and rehabilitation centres, and criticised the Union for not backing aid it had demanded in a September motion. The Budget Committee’s report of 16 October 2024 on the Hospital Care Improvement Act names her among the rapporteurs and describes a shift from case-based payment toward a retention budget, with a transformation fund from 2026.

In May 2024 the Budget Committee released €52 million for 2024–2028 for services and research on children and young people with Long COVID, after a ministry concept prepared with specialists and patient groups. The Deutsches Ärzteblatt identified Stadler as the rapporteur announcing the release; she said the money was well spent because the illness often differs in children, and described a specialist clinic in each state, following measures Karl Lauterbach had outlined in April. In the 19th term she was also an ordinary member of the Health Committee’s parliamentary accompanying body on the pandemic, formed in April 2021.

In the 21st Bundestag she spoke for the SPD on the health budget as well as on education and family. On 10 September 2026, Einzelplan 15 under [Carsten Linnemann](/people/carsten-linnemann) (CDU) was drafted at about €14.33 billion, €7.43 billion below 2026’s €21.77 billion, largely because multi-year loans to the health fund and long-term care insurance lapsed. Stadler said the federal subsidy to statutory health insurance, about 90 percent of the chapter, would fall to €12.5 billion, that a contribution-rate law passed before the summer was not yet in the draft, and that added prevention money was still “ausbaufähig”, while pointing to the hospital transformation fund. Linnemann said savings were unavoidable and expected an €8 billion care-insurance deficit in 2027; Green budget politician [Paula Piechotta](/people/paula-piechotta) called the draft dishonest and said a €2 billion subsidy cut would fall on contributors.

## Agriculture, animal welfare and rural areas

### Animal-welfare legislation and the LPT laboratory

The Laboratory of Pharmacology and Toxicology (LPT) ran a contract-testing site at Mienenbüttel in Neu Wulmstorf, in the Harburg constituency. In December 2013 Svenja Stadler told abgeordnetenwatch.de that she rejected cruelty to animals and that barring the municipality and journalists suggested something was hidden. She wrote of an ethical duty to do without animal testing, backed mayor Wolf-Egbert Rosenzweig’s demand for access, and said she was in contact with Lobby pro Tier. That September she called animal protection a Social Democratic Party priority, citing the Basic Law, and invoked the Three Rs.

Undercover material from Soko Tierschutz and Cruelty Free International in 2019 put the site into public dispute. The *Kreiszeitung Wochenblatt* reported that the Harburg district and Lower Saxony’s consumer-protection office had complained of animal-welfare breaches. On 17 January 2020 the district revoked, with immediate effect, LPT’s section 11 permit to keep animals for experiments, saying the operator was no longer reliable. Ninety-six dogs had two weeks to be rehomed after 49 cats and 80 dogs had already left, and a lawsuit would not have suspended the order. The *Hamburger Abendblatt* reported the following month that LPT was suing the district and that its Hamburg-Neugraben laboratory had also closed.

In August 2024 she wrote that she had helped close such a laboratory, and that with Budget Committee colleagues she had funded a database of non-animal methods. The permit was withdrawn by the district, not by the Bundestag. She said she wanted experiments ended where alternatives existed, and that she backed a draft Animal Welfare Act ending tethering of cattle, goats and donkeys and cutting interventions such as tail docking — short of a questioner’s call to ban every form of tethering.

### Livestock, nitrate and agricultural support

On 29 November 2018 the Bundestag extended to 31 December 2020 the period in which male piglets could be castrated without anaesthesia up to day eight. Of 650 votes, 421 were for, 142 against and 87 abstentions: the CDU/CSU, the SPD and Alternative for Germany largely voted yes, Alliance 90/The Greens and Die Linke voted no, and the Free Democratic Party abstained as a group. Stadler wrote in January 2019 that she disliked the extension but voted for it: a hearing majority wanted more time, she blamed the CDU-led agriculture ministry for little progress since 2013, and she said an immediate ban would hurt smaller farms and raise imports. Her condition was an end on 31 December 2020, training, €38 million for equipment, and alternatives such as finishing entire males.

In July 2018 she called sheep and goat keeping strained and a public service, including dike care. The SPD, she wrote, backed a Green and Left motion for a pasture premium only for sheep and goats, not for all grazing animals including dairy cows. With the CDU/CSU unwilling to talk, the SPD rejected that text while still seeking federal money for shepherds shut out of EU payments. In November 2014, answering a claim that energy crops and leaky sewers were ignored, she wrote that SPD colleagues, citing the Federal Environment Agency, had told her improper slurry use was by far the largest part of the nitrate problem, so the new fertilizer ordinance was the right tool. In February 2014 she said the SPD rejected genetically engineered maize 1507 but abstained on a Green motion rather than break with the CDU, which favoured green genetic engineering. She regretted Germany’s abstention in Brussels on 11 February and wanted cultivation kept out of Germany and EU labels on products from animals fed modified plants.

### Rural development and the agriculture committee

In the 21st Bundestag Stadler is an ordinary member of the Committee on Agriculture, Food and Heimat, and of the Budget Committee and the Audit Committee. Her disclosed biography also lists the Landfrauen association.

On 23 September 2025, in the first reading of the 2026 budget, she spoke for the SPD on Einzelplan 10, the estimates of food, agriculture and Heimat minister Alois Rainer. She said nutrition lines stayed largely flat while the problems grew. Citing a Robert Koch Institute finding that one child in six was overweight or obese, she criticised junk-food advertising to children and asked for more money for nutrition education, monitoring and prevention. Green member [Niklas Wagener](/people/niklas-wagener) said the coalition was instead cutting the federal programme for rural development and regional value creation.

On 8 October 2026 she opposed Green motions on crisis-proof food supply. She said the SPD wanted the chain from field to shop made more resilient, without new offices or weaker health, consumer or labour standards, and would vote the motions down with the Union.

## Local mandates and the Harburg constituency

### District council and local council

The Bundestag constituency of Harburg (Wahlkreis 36) is the whole of Landkreis Harburg. The district lies in north-eastern Lower Saxony, immediately south of Hamburg, between the marshes of the lower Elbe and the Lüneburg Heath. It covers 1,248.45 square kilometres and 42 municipalities; the district’s population register listed 265,727 inhabitants on 31 December 2025. The largest municipalities on that date were Seevetal (44,091), Buchholz in the Nordheide (41,636), the district town of Winsen (Luhe) (37,050) and Neu Wulmstorf (23,552).

The district administration describes the area as still largely rural—nearly a third under nature or landscape protection—but shaped by commuting to Hamburg. Federal figures for 2022–23 show a migration surplus of 20.4 per 1,000 inhabitants against a birth deficit of 3.4; at the end of 2022, 17.4 per cent of the land was in settlement or transport use. The A1, A7, A261, A26 and A39 meet on the Hamburg fringe, the Maschen interchange and the Horster Dreieck in Seevetal carry north–south road traffic, and the district administration describes the Maschen marshalling yard as Europe’s largest. The administration sits in Winsen (Luhe) under Landrat Rainer Rempe (CDU), who also chairs the supervisory board of the district hospitals.

Svenja Stadler, of the SPD, has been a member of the Kreistag of Landkreis Harburg and of the Ortsrat for Fleestedt, Glüsingen, Beckedorf and Metzendorf since 2016. The Bundestag’s disclosure of members’ interests lists both posts as unpaid and names the local council as that for Fleestedt, Glüsingen, Beckedorf and Woxdorf, in the municipality of Seevetal. Seevetal’s own list titles the same body the Ortsrat of Fleestedt, Glüsingen, Beckedorf and Metzendorf; for the 2021–2026 term its chair is Timo Röntsch (FWG). Stadler’s own curriculum vitae dates the two seats from November 2016, and states that from 2011 to 2016 she was an advisory member of Seevetal’s committee for youth, seniors and social affairs, and from 2020 a member of the district committee for art, culture and media.

### Constituency office and local issues

The Bundestag gives her constituency office as Fleestedter Ring 3, 21217 Seevetal. In February 2018 the *Stader Tageblatt* reported that she was leaving rooms in Winsen for a smaller, step-free office in Fleestedt, which it described as closer to the middle of the district, with the new address taking effect on 1 March 2018.

Regional coverage has centred on commuter links, hospitals and flooding. In a February 2025 survey by the transport association VCD Elbe-Heide, published in the *Kreiszeitung Wochenblatt*, she said traffic should shift to rail and inland shipping, that charging points and subsidies should ease the move to electric cars, and that she favoured the A39. Cornell Babendererde (CDU) and Ingmar Schmidt (FDP) also backed the motorway; Frerk Meyer of the Greens called it unnecessary and damaging to protected landscapes. On 11 September 2025 the paper reported that Stadler, Rempe, Seevetal mayor Emily Weede, other district mayors, Babendererde and Landtag members Jan Bauer, André Bock and Nadja Weippert had signed a statement rejecting a new Hamburg–Hanover railway across the heath. They called instead for the Alpha-E upgrade of existing lines agreed in a 2015 public dialogue, which they described as a commitment Deutsche Bahn was breaking; the railway said studies had found those measures insufficient and that the existing line was at 147 per cent of capacity.

In January 2026 the *Hamburger Abendblatt* reported that Stadler had warned against transferring the municipally owned hospitals in Buchholz and Winsen into private hands, referring to department closures at the hospital in Geesthacht. Rempe called such reports speculation: the district, the supervisory board and the hospital management would keep both sites in municipal ownership, while the consultancy Oberender AG looked for savings after about €30 million in district deficit support over three years. On flood protection, the *Kreiszeitung Wochenblatt* reported a meeting she called on 29 January 2024 at the German Red Cross disaster-relief centre in Winsen, where Lower Saxony interior minister Daniela Behrens discussed the recent floods and climate change with more than 100 people from the fire service, the Technical Relief Agency and other rescue organisations.

## Voluntary work and public profile

### Welfare, rescue and community organizations

The Bundestag biography states that its biographical details rest on the member's own information. It lists membership of the Arbeiterwohlfahrt (AWO), the German Red Cross, a Landfrauenverband, the Seevetal prevention council, the Mühlenverein Karoxbostel, the sports club TuS Fleestedt and a Lions club. Since 2021 Stadler has chaired the AWO parliamentarians' group of the Social Democratic Party Bundestag group, a role the biography still records for the 21st electoral term. In her report on the preceding term she wrote that the group had returned to in-person parliamentary breakfasts, with six meetings from the start of 2023, including sessions on financing the welfare state and on migration policy. The same report says that inside the parliamentary group she takes part in the Parlamentarische Linke, which she described as the organized wing of its left-wing members, and it names the Harburg district federation of rural women's associations and the Karoxbostel watermill society among her local memberships.

Apart from ordinary membership, the biography's register of disclosable posts records an unpaid seat on the Präsidium of DRK-Kreisverband Harburg-Land e.V. in Winsen (Luhe), published as running until 26 November 2025. The register also lists her as unpaid chair of the board of trustees of the Elly Heuss-Knapp-Stiftung – Deutsches Müttergenesungswerk until 21 May 2026, and, from 3 May 2025, as an unpaid adviser on women's and girls' football on the district youth committee of the Lower Saxony Football Association.

### Outside activities and transparency

The published interests begin with the occupation she held before entering parliament: senior public-relations consultant at Straub & Linardatos GmbH in Hamburg, with a right to return to that employment. Under the members' code of conduct (sections 45 onwards of the Abgeordnetengesetz), the same filing lists unpaid membership of the Seevetal local council for Fleestedt, Glüsingen, Beckedorf and Woxdorf and of the Harburg district council, together with the Red Cross, foundation and football posts. Those public and association offices are marked honorary; the filing does not record a paid sideline.

On 24 October 2019 Karl-Friedrich M. asked on abgeordnetenwatch how that record fitted a sentence on her website, in the section "Gläserne Abgeordnete": "Ich gehe keinerlei Nebentätigkeiten nach, um mich ausschließlich meinen Aufgaben als MdB widmen zu können." He wrote that her reports, and the platform's list of side activities, showed at least seven. Stadler answered on 8 November 2019 that the sentence referred to paid offices beside the mandate. She distinguished those from unpaid posts linked to her responsibility for civic engagement, citing the Red Cross Präsidium and the Müttergenesungswerk chair, and wrote that the wording had not been precise and that she had corrected it. The page now states that she deliberately takes on no paid side activities and receives no further income, and it itemizes her parliamentary pay together with the expense, office and staff allowances attached to the mandate.

### Media presence and reception

Coverage of her work is concentrated in Harburg-area papers and in the parliament's own debate record. In March 2024 the Kreiszeitung Wochenblatt reported a members' meeting of the SPD local association in Buxtehude at which she spoke about her work in Berlin, citing rises in the minimum wage, the minimum training allowance and child benefit among measures of the governing coalition. In February 2025, during the federal campaign, seevetal-aktuell published an interview in which she discussed a solidarity-based health system and care, adherence to the Alpha-E rail alignment and expansion of local public transport, affordable housing, and the participation of children and young people. Video of her plenary speeches is published in the Bundestag media library.

## Dated facts

_No published facts on this page yet._

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/people/svenja-stadler