Norbert Schindler is a German politician and lobbyist of the Christian Democratic Party of Germany who served as a member of the Bundestag from 1994 bis 2017.
Schindler grew up in Rodenbach (Ebertsheim), RP. After attending a Volksschule , he completed an apprenticeship in agriculture and finally passed the examination to become a master farmer. He has been running his own agricultural and wine-growing business in Bobenheim am Berg since 1972. [1] He is Vice President of the German Farmers' Association, Honorary President of the Rhineland-Palatinate South Farmers' and Winegrowers' Association and President of the Rhineland-Palatinate Chamber of Agriculture. He was also a member of the Board of Directors of Landwirtschaftliche Rentenbank.
Norbert Schindler is Catholic, married and the father of two children. [2]
He joined the CDU in 1966 and was a member of the Bobenheim am Berg municipal council from 1979 to 1989. In 1991, he was elected chairman of the Bad Dürkheim CDU district association and in 1999 he became a member of the Bad Dürkheim district council (Kreistag).
Schindler was a member of the German Bundestag from 1994 to 2017. He always entered the Bundestag as a directly elected member of parliament for the Neustadt - Speyer constituency.
| Election | 1994 | 1998 | 2002 | 2005 | 2009 | 2013 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Votes # | 49,8% [3] | 46.3% [4] | 44,2 % [5] | 44.8% [6] | 71,481 (44.6%) | 77,345 (47.9%) |
In 2016, Schindler announced that he would retire from politics in 2017 and no longer run for the Bundestag. [7]
During his time in the parliament, Schindler was a member of the Committee on Economic Affairs and Energy and a deputy member of the Committee on Food and Agriculture. [8] At the same time, he was also a biofuel and agricultural lobbyist. He sat on the supervisory board of the bioethanol company CropEnergies and received at least 30,000 euros a year for this. In the Bundestag, he defended the introduction of E10 fuel against criticism from environmental organisations. For his participation in other aforementioned lobbyist associations, he receives between €1,000 and €3,500 per month. From 2005 to 2023, he was the honorary federal chairman of the Federal Association of the German Bioethanol Industry. [9] [10] [11] [12]