Federal Council appoints EU chief negotiator number six with Franzen
Published: Friday, Dec 15th 2023, 16:40
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On Friday, the Federal Council appointed Deputy State Secretary Patric Franzen as EU chief negotiator. He is the sixth chief diplomat in the past ten years to lead negotiations with the EU.
PATRIC FRANZEN: Career diplomat Franzen was appointed Head of the Europe Division at the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA) in 2021 under former State Secretary Livia Leu. He had previously headed the Swiss embassy in Tbilisi, Georgia, since 2018. A trained lawyer in the field of international humanitarian law and human rights, he joined the FDFA in 1999. Among other things, he was chief of staff at the State Secretariat for International Financial Matters (SIF) and deputy head of mission at the embassy in Moscow. Franzen reports to the new FDFA State Secretary Alexandre Fasel, who took over from Leu at the beginning of September and now fills the interface between foreign policy negotiations and domestic policy discussions.
LIVIA LEU: The 62-year-old top diplomat has been responsible for the EU dossier as State Secretary at the FDFA since October 2020. Prior to her position as State Secretary, Leu was ambassador in Tehran and Paris, among other things. During her three-year term as negotiator, negotiations on a framework agreement with the EU were broken off in 2021, after which she had to restart the difficult talks between Switzerland and the EU. Leu left the post at her own request and has been ambassador in Berlin since this fall.
ROBERTO BALZARETTI: The Federal Council dismissed Leu's direct predecessor, Roberto Balzaretti, from his position as chief negotiator in mid-October 2020 and transferred him to Paris as ambassador, where he replaced Leu. As State Secretary and head of the then Directorate for European Affairs at the FDFA, the now 58-year-old from Ticino had negotiated the framework agreement with the EU in 2018, which ultimately failed due to domestic politics. Many no longer believed he could achieve a turnaround in Brussels. The Federal Council appointed Balzaretti to the post at the end of January 2018.
PASCALE BAERISWYL: Pascale Baeriswyl took over the coordination of negotiations with the EU from April 2017 following the retirement of State Secretary Jacques de Watteville. She worked together with the responsible negotiators and took over this task from Yves Rossier. Baeriswyl had been State Secretary since 2016 - the first woman to hold this post at the FDFA. In January 2018, following his election to the Federal Council, Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis removed some of her dossiers and made Balzaretti the central man in the European dossier. Since 2020, the 55-year-old has headed Switzerland's permanent mission to the United Nations in New York.
JACQUES DE WATTEVILLE: Until 2017, the now 72-year-old State Secretary Jacques de Watteville led the negotiations with the EU. The FDFA, with the then Federal Councillor Didier Burkhalter, had recruited him from the State Secretariat for International Financial Matters at the Federal Department of Finance (SIF) in August 2015. He retired from there at the end of June 2016, but retained his position as chief negotiator. Yves Rossier - the previous chief diplomat for Brussels - took second place. The personnel decision was intended to open up a way out of a tough immigration dispute with the EU following the Yes to the SVP immigration initiative.
YVES ROSSIER: Now 63 years old, Yves Rossier was Switzerland's chief diplomat as State Secretary from 2012 to 2016 and played a key role in the preliminary negotiations for the framework agreement with the EU. In 2017, he moved to Moscow as ambassador until 2020 and resigned from the FDFA in February 2021.
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