Felipe Bulnes

Felipe Bulnes Serrano

Felipe Bulnes Serrano (born May 27, 1969 in Santiago de Chile ) is a Chilean lawyer and politician of the right-wing liberal party Renovación Nacional .

Bulnes studied law at Harvard University and after graduating worked as an advisor to the Bar Association and was a member of the law firm Bulnes, Pellegrini, Urrutia. He was also a professor at the Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez and the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile . After the presidential elections in Chile in 2009/2010 , Bulnes took over the post of Justice Minister in the first Piñera cabinet .

Education Minister Joaquín Lavín had to resign from his post in July 2011 because of the ongoing student protests . Bulnes then became the new Minister of Education. The protests of the pupils and students are directed against the anti-social education system in Chile, which is largely financed by tuition fees and which means that many students are highly indebted after completing their studies. The demonstrators demand a fair, state-funded education system. Bulnes initiated a negotiation process with the students, but this was broken off after a short time because the government refused to discuss free education for all students.

On December 29, 2011, Bulnes resigned from the post of Minister of Education after less than six months. Officially, "personal reasons" were given as reasons for resignation, but observers suspect that Bulnes was disappointed with the tight limits that the government had set for him for negotiations with the students. Bulnes' successor was Harald Beyer , who opposed educational reform.

In early 2012, Bulnes was sent to the United States by President Sebastián Piñera as Chilean ambassador . In the spring of 2013 he was also appointed Chilean representative at the International Court of Justice in The Hague , where Bolivia's litigation regarding the border disputes with Chile was pending. Michelle Bachelet , who assumed her second presidency in March 2014, confirmed Bulnes as Chilean negotiator in The Hague. He was replaced as ambassador to Washington in April 2014. At the end of 2015, after the ruling of the Hague Tribunal, his function at the Court of Justice also ended.

Web links

Commons : Felipe Bulnes  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Biography in Washington Diplomat (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Martin F. Meyer / Winfried Jung: Sebastián Piñera presents his cabinet. In: KAS country report. February 10, 2010, accessed January 11, 2012 . 
2. ↑ Federico Quilodran: Chile protests claim another education minister. In: The Guardian . December 30, 2011, accessed January 11, 2012 . 
3. ↑ oA: Education Minister in Chile resigned. In: faz.net. December 30, 2011, accessed January 11, 2012 . 
4. ↑ Embajador Felipe Bulnes presentó sus cartas credenciales ante Barack Obama ( Memento of the original from June 3, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) 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.