Alain Berset

Alain Berset ( born April 9, 1972 in Freiburg, home justified in Courtion ) is a Swiss politician (SP). In 2003 he was elected to the Senate, which he was Chairman in Office 2008 /2009. On December 14, 2011, he was elected to succeed Micheline Calmy- Rey in the Bundesrat. Since then, he has directed the Federal Department of Home Affairs (DHA).

Life and education

Berset spent his youth in the Fribourg Belfaux between Freiburg and Payerne. He attended secondary school in Freiburg and studied at the University of Neuchâtel, where in 2005 he completed his studies in 1996 with a degree in Political Science ( Lic ès sc pol. ), Respectively, with a doctorate in economics. From 1996 to 2000 he was an assistant and a research assistant at the University of Neuchâtel and from then until 2001 Guest researcher at HWWA Institute for Economic Research in Hamburg. From 2006 he worked as an independent strategy and communications consultant. He is married and father of three children.

Policy

Alain Berset comes from a SP family. Already his grandfather and his mother politicized at the cantonal level for the Social Democratic Party. They were two of the TPF cantonal parliament, the Grand Council, at. From 2000 to 2004 Alain Berset was a member of the Constitutional Council of the Canton of Fribourg, where he presided over the SP Group. From 2001 to 2003 he represented the SP on the General Council in Belfaux. In addition, he was political adviser to the Neuchâtel Economics Director Bernard Soguel.

In the 2003 elections Berset was chosen as representative of the canton of Fribourg as the youngest member of the Little Chamber in the Council of States. He sat down in the second round against the previous representatives provide, Jean -Claude Cornu (FDP) by. In December 2005, he became Vice President of the Socialist Group of the Federal Assembly. In the 2007 elections, he missed the first ballot an absolute majority. As his competitors ( including Cornu again ) but there was no time to compete in the second round, Berset was confirmed in silent choice for another four years. 2008/2009 he was Senate president. In the federal elections in 2011, he was elected as Senate again in the first round.

The Federal Council elections in December 2011, he was chosen as one of the two official SP candidate to succeed the retiring Federal Councillor Micheline Calmy -Rey in the second ballot with 126 votes, at an absolute More by 123 votes when 115 Bundesrat of Switzerland. He took office on 1 January 2012 as Head of the Department of Home Affairs, while his predecessor Didier Burkhalter in the EDI successor Calmy- Rey was in the Department of Foreign Affairs.