Another stop on the constituency campaign tour took us on the 26th of July to the beautiful district town of Bad Dürkheim in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, to meet with German EPP-MEP Christine Schneider.
We visited one of the town’s oldest craft businesses, Waffen Walther. This traditional company was founded in 1815. The current owner and master gunsmith Patrick Fell-Rathmacher took over the business from the Walther family in 2002.
At EU level, Mrs Schneider focuses on agriculture, forestry and the environment. Following her re-election in June 2024, she became Parliamentary Secretary of the German CDU/CSU group in the European Parliament.
After welcoming us, Mr Fell-Rathmacher gave Mrs Schneider a tour of the shop. We then used the premises of his hunting school to talk to her about current issues such as the Firearms Regulation, the Firearms Directive and ‘lead in ammunition’. Over the past years, the AECAC has been in close contact with MEP Schneider on these issues.
The MEP has been a passionate hunter herself for over 20 years and is very familiar with the debate on European and national firearms legislation. She emphasised that close contact with Brussels is essential, as laws are made there that must be transposed into national law by the member states.
A sense of proportion is particularly important when it comes to implementation. “Over-regulation and unnecessary bureaucracy only hinder the authorities and do not lead to any real increase in safety”, says Schneider. “Legal gun owners and innocent citizens should not be placed under general suspicion”, she continues.
Now that her party-colleague Ursula von der Leyen has been re-elected President of the European Commission, personnel decisions are being made in Brussels and responsibilities are being allocated. As soon as this has happened, it will be necessary to closely monitor how the issues that were not finalised during the last legislative period are dealt with.
We would like to thank MEP Schneider for her time, the intensive discussion and her offer to continue exchanging ideas.
Picture from left to right: Kai Hauck (Waffenbau Hauck), Peter Braß (VDB), Christine Schneider (MEP) and Patrick-Fell-Rathmacher (Waffen Walther)