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The Chancellor of the FDP, Ignazio Cassis (59), changes the workhorse. He gives in to pressure from the Federal Council and takes his former secretary of state and EU chief negotiator out of the field: Roberto Balzaretti (55), who negotiated the controversial framework agreement in 2018, will become ambassador to France, as reported today the “Tages-Anzeiger”.
CH Media’s investigation, Livia Leu Agosti (59), appears to be the new Secretary of State for the FDFA. She has been the Swiss ambassador to France for two years, so she would change jobs with Balzaretti.
Cassis takes his loyal diplomatic chief Balzaretti out of the game because he saw that there was no formality in the Federal Council. Federal councilors don’t like to lose, not even Cassis, that’s why Balzaretti has to jump to the limit for better or for worse.
There was too much resistance against him inside and outside the government, especially from the unions. The former ambassador in Brussels was not trusted to negotiate with the EU hard enough and successfully.
Schneider-Ammann shoots Cassis man
But the incident runs deeper. For the controversial Chancellor Cassis, whose most vehement opponent on the Federal Council appears to be his party colleague Karin Keller-Sutter, a momentous defeat looms.
What experiences its temporary climax here is a power struggle that could be described as the Johann Schneider-Ammann coup. The former Federal Council, retired in early 2019, featured Balzaretti’s departure and Cassis’s defeat in mid-September in an extraordinary guest comment on NZZ. The former economy minister distanced himself from the Cassis framework agreement, which his FDP recently vehemently supported.
With the agreement negotiated in 2018, “the child will be thrown into the bathroom”, thundered the pensioner: “Switzerland must not only adapt the wage protection measures that accompany them and adopt the Directive on Citizens of the Union and the regulations on state aid, but also, first of all, in all existing and future market access agreements, the principle of dynamic legal adoption applies. “
Ambühl, the man in the background
Schneider-Ammann was in favor of renegotiating certain points. In its visuals, Switzerland has to accept the dynamic adjustment of the market access agreement to EU legal developments, but exempt certain areas such as wage protection, the Union Citizens Directive and probably also state aid, i.e. , “immunize”.
If an agreement with the EU cannot be reached within a reasonable period of time, Bern advocates an interim agreement. “In this, Switzerland would affirm its willingness to support the EU with a generous contribution to cohesion, and Bern and Brussels would normally continue to update the treaties as part of the Courant.”
The concept that the old Federal Council proposed was not his, but the concept of Michael Ambühl (69). The former senior diplomat is now a professor of negotiation and conflict management at ETH Zurich and was secretary of state in the Foreign Affairs department from 2005 to 2010, one of Balzaretti’s predecessors. Between 2001 and 2004, the Bernese man, who has been Schneider-Ammann’s confidant for many years, negotiated the Bilateral IIs.
Leu, Ambühl, JSA: a circle closes
From 2010 to 2013 he was head of the State Secretariat for International Financial Affairs (SIF). After his retirement, Ambühl repeatedly intervened in the EU negotiations from ETH. Last fall, for example, he presented the concept, including a provisional contract, which Schneider-Ammann, once called “JSA” for short in Federal Council, is now propagating.
Retired diplomat Ambühl is also, and this is another circle, sponsor and close confidant of the daughter of the Grisons hotelier, Livia Leu Agosti, who will apparently be named Balzaretti’s successor by the Federal Council on Wednesday.
The diplomat was, among other things, ambassador to Iran. Since 2013, under the direction of the Minister of Economy, Johann Schneider-Ammann, she was a delegate of the Federal Council for trade agreements in the State Secretariat for the Dry Economy.
“Shadow Secretary of State” Ambühl?
“Ambühl wrote the text of Johann Schneider-Ammann”, is convinced a diplomat. With the election of Livia Leu as diplomatic director of the Department of Foreign Affairs, the restless ETH professor and former EU negotiator would now become a “shadow secretary of state,” says a department observer. A view that not everyone likes. That would be “a catastrophe” for the FDFA and foreign policy, says one.
During his active time as Federal Councilor, Schneider-Ammann disagreed with his party colleague and Foreign Minister Didier Burkhalter. He suffered from his wavering EU policy. With the successor Cassis it was not much better. As a pensioner, it seems, you could still have a direct line to the FDFA control center and thus influence the course of the EU negotiations.
For some it is clear: in Cassis, which already has a difficult position in the Federal Council, a former Federal Council and a former Secretary of State will govern in the future.
