Erich Fehr

Erich Fehr at a sporting event in 2016

Erich Fehr (born August 17, 1968 in Biel / Bienne , Canton of Bern ) is a Swiss politician ( SP ) and mayor of Biel / Bienne.

Political offices

Erich Fehr has been the full-time mayor of Biel / Bienne since January 1, 2011. Until the structural adjustment on January 1, 2013, he was also finance director. Before that, he was a member of the city council in his hometown from 1997 to 2008 and a part-time councilor from 2009 to 2010.

Acting as mayor of Biel / Bienne

Fehr's most important successes as city president to date have been the technology campus of the Bern University of Applied Sciences (BFH), the innovation park and the Tissot Arena .

In 2012, with support from all over Zealand, the Grand Council of the Canton of Bern made a decision on the location for the construction of the new BFH campus directly at Biel station; From 2021, the departments of technology and IT as well as architecture, wood and construction will be combined in a new building under the name Campus Biel / Bienne . The Manufacture des Montres Rolex SA could be won as a patron in order to be able to realize a large and polyvalent hall under the name Rolex Campus Hall instead of a pure university hall, which is also open to the general public for cultural events and other occasions.

Thanks to significant preparatory work by the city of Biel, in the summer of 2015 Biel was awarded the contract for a network location for the Swiss Innovation Park, today Switzerland Innovation . There is currently a fully functioning pilot operation that will move into a new building right next to the campus in 2019.

In 2012, after lengthy negotiations, Fehr was able to achieve the breakthrough in the Stades de Bienne project, which had been launched by its predecessor , and thus get construction started (groundbreaking on December 20, 2012). After a construction period of around two and a half years, the double stadium, unique in Switzerland, with the latest ice hockey, football and curling infrastructure and multifunctional uses, was officially inaugurated on September 25, 2015. Thanks to a partnership brokered by Fehr with the Biel-based watch company Swatch Group, the system has now been called the “Tissot Arena” for at least ten years. In cooperation with the Federal Office for Sport in Magglingen and the respective associations, Fehr succeeded in bringing the women's football academy to Biel, turning the Tissot Arena into a women's and junior national stadium and locating the national curling performance center there. In June 2016, the European Beach Volleyball Championships (Beach Euro) took place on the beach in Biel, the most prestigious international sporting event since the Group B Ice Hockey World Championships in Biel in 1976.

As city president, Erich Fehr is committed to the realization of the western branch of the A5, as only in this way, as the city council of Biel and external experts have repeatedly stated, will the long-necessary traffic calming in large parts of the city and agglomeration of Biel be possible. Individual motorized traffic can only disappear from residential areas if there are alternative routes and a sufficient number of access and exit routes to the high-speed road network. For this reason, the two connections "Bienne-Center" and "Seevorstadt" (half connection) are necessary, although they are associated with substantial interventions in the urban space, which, however, are supported by inter-municipal planning for the cities of Biel and Nidau, respectively. whose implementation can be cushioned in the best possible way. These findings were already recorded in 2010 by a regional working group. In August 2020, Erich Fehr announced a new assessment: "Politically, I do not assume that the project can somehow be punched through in its unchanged form," said Biel's city president Erich Fehr (SP).

Political profile

Erich Fehr belongs to the social liberal wing of the SP, which is based on personal responsibility, social justice and a social market economy. Fehr is also a member of the reform-oriented platform in the SP Switzerland and works there in the core group.

Family / origin

His father Hermann Fehr (* 1941) grew up in Ermatingen in the canton of Thurgau and moved to Biel in 1966, where he also served as mayor of the SP from 1977 to 1990; He was also a member of the National Council from 1983 to 1990 and the Government Council of the Canton of Bern from 1990 to 1997. His grandfather Hermann Fehr (1909–1992) was the SP's mayor in Ermatingen from 1961 to 1975 and a member of the Grand Council of the Canton of Thurgau for eight years. His father's cousin, Hans-Jürg Fehr (* 1948), was a national councilor from Schaffhausen and president of the Swiss SP. His stepson is the ice hockey player Michel Riesen , the first Swiss NHL first round draft in 1997.

Individual evidence

1. ^ City of Biel - Mayor Erich Fehr. Retrieved March 14, 2017 . 
2. ↑ Archive | Campus Biel. Retrieved on March 14, 2017 (German). 
3. ↑ Tobias Graden: Rolex is financing a hall for the Biel campus . In: Berner Zeitung, Berner Zeitung . March 9, 2014, ISSN  1424-1021 ( bernerzeitung.ch [accessed on March 14, 2017]).
4. ↑ Switzerland Innovation Park Biel / Bienne. Retrieved March 14, 2017 . 
5. ^ Tissot Arena - the future home of EHC Biel and FC Biel. Retrieved March 14, 2017 . 
6. ↑ sda / sahm: Women's football academy moves to Biel. January 24, 2013, accessed March 14, 2017 . 
7. ↑ Super User: BEACH EURO 2016. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on July 13, 2017 ; accessed on March 14, 2017 (German). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
8. ^ City of Biel - west branch A5 / accompanying urban planning. Retrieved August 7, 2017 . 
9. ^ Solution for the Biel motorway bypass - movement in the west branch dispute - but central points of contention remain. Retrieved August 13, 2020 . 
10. ^ Reform-oriented platform in the SP Switzerland: About us. Retrieved March 14, 2017 . 
11. ↑ see list of government councils in the canton of Bern
12. ↑ Hermann Fehr - Vinorama Museum Ermatingen. Retrieved March 14, 2017 . 
13. ↑ View council member. Retrieved March 14, 2017 . 
14. ↑ www.20minuten.ch, 20 minutes, 20 minutes, www.20min.ch: When going home is (too) expensive . In: 20 minutes . ( 20min.ch [accessed on March 18, 2017]).