Oswald Sigg

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Oswald Sigg

Oswald Sigg (born March 18, 1944 in Zurich ) is a former Swiss civil servant. From August 1, 2005 to March 31, 2009, he was Vice Chancellor and Federal Council spokesman (government spokesman) of the Swiss Confederation .

As Vice Chancellor, Oswald Sigg supported the Federal Chancellors Annemarie Huber-Hotz and Corina Casanova . Within the Federal Chancellery , he was responsible for the area of ​​information and communication, which at that time comprised the sections information and communication, electronic communication with authorities and the federal parliamentary and central library . André Simonazzi has been his successor since April 1, 2009 .

Life

Oswald Sigg attended primary and secondary school in Zurich and the business school at the Collège St-Michel in Freiburg . This was followed by studies of sociology , economics and business administration at the universities of St. Gallen , Paris and Bern . He received his doctorate in 1978 under Erich Gruner at the Research Center for Swiss Politics at the University of Bern with a doctoral thesis on the effectiveness of the popular initiative .

During his studies, Sigg launched the federal popular initiative for school coordination as a member of the BGB youth group together with Felix Matthys, Marc-Roland Peter and Markus Rohr. It was tabled in 1969 and included in Parliament's vote on the educational articles in 1972. This was discarded in 1973 with the number of estates.

Sigg began his professional career as Deputy Head of Information at the Federal Chancellery (1975–1980). He was then head of information for the Federal Department of Finance (1980–1984 under Willi Ritschard , 1984–1988 under Otto Stich ).

From 1988–1990 Sigg was editor-in-chief and member of the executive board of the Swiss Dispatch Agency , then company spokesman for the SRG general management (1991–1997).

In 1998 Sigg returned to the federal service and initially worked as head of information for the Federal Department of Defense, Civil Protection and Sport (1998–2000 under Adolf Ogi , 2001–2004 under Samuel Schmid ), then as chief of staff of the head of the Federal Department of Environment, Transport, Energy and Communication (2004–2005 under Moritz Leuenberger ) before he was appointed Vice Chancellor and Federal Council Spokesman (government spokesman ) in 2005.

Sigg retired on March 31, 2009. He then worked on the editorial team of the socio-political media service “Halb / Moitié” founded by Paul Ignaz Vogel in 1996 and, until 2015, also served as president of the Association for Social Justice, which published the media service. After 20 years, its operation was stopped at the end of 2016. As Vice-President of the Board of Trustees of the Kurt Imhof Foundation for Media Quality, Sigg is also active in the field of media policy. The foundation supports the financing and publication of the yearbooks Quality of Media Switzerland Suisse Svizzera , which were developed from 2010 to 2014 under the direction of Kurt Imhof and after his death in 2015 by Mark Eisenegger from the Research Department Public and Society at the University of Zurich .

Oswald Sigg has been a member of the Swiss Social Democratic Party and the Syndicom trade union since 1973 . From 2009 to 2016 he was a member of the central board of Helvetas . From 2009 to 2015 he was a board member of the Society for Swiss Art History . Sigg was a member of the initiative committee of the federal popular initiative “For an unconditional basic income”, which was rejected in 2016 . This initiative was submitted to the Federal Chancellery on October 4, 2013 with 126,408 valid signatures.

From 2015 he worked on a report on the social situation in the banlieue of Paris (Départements 93 Seine-Saint-Denis and 94 Val-de-Marne ) with a special focus on the exclusion and persecution of the Roma . In collaboration with Aline Poupel (Collectif Romeurope 94).

Together with financial entrepreneur Felix Bolliger, Marc Chesney (professor at the University of Zurich) and Anton Gunzinger (entrepreneur, professor at ETH-Z) as well as the lawyer Jacob Zgraggen, Sigg has been forming a working group since 2015, which is the micro-tax on all payment transactions as an alternative to today's tax system developed. After submitting the basic income initiative in autumn 2013, Bolliger proposed to Sigg that the unconditional basic income should be financed through such a micro-tax. Sigg then tried in vain to convince the initiative committee of this idea. But the voting discussion in the early summer of 2016 nevertheless showed that the micro-tax on payment transactions - it would be a taxation of the financial sector, over 90% of which denies payment transactions in Switzerland - is attracting interest. The “Micro Tax Association” was founded at the end of 2016 and is chaired by Sigg, which aims to actively support the micro-tax initiative in terms of ideas, politics and journalism. The micro-tax initiative was published in the Federal Gazette on February 25, 2020 and started at the beginning of March 2020 with three press conferences in Geneva, Zurich and Bellinzona.

Works (selection)

Books

  • The federal popular initiatives 1892–1939. Francke Verlag, Bern 1978.
  • The political institutions of Switzerland. Pro Helvetia, Zurich 1982. (Editions in French, Italian and English)
  • Political Switzerland. Pro Helvetia, Zurich 1996. (Editions in French, Italian, English, Polish, Arabic and Chinese)
  • Cookbook for all occasions , Edition Wasserwerk Bern-Matte 2010
  • with Viktor Parma: Switzerland that can be bought. Nagel & Kimche, Zurich 2011, ISBN 978-3-312-00484-3 .
  • Cookbook and reading book just in case. Edition Wasserwerk, Bern-Matte 2014, ISBN 978-3-033-04309-1 .

editor

  • Christian Fehr: Willi Ritschard worker - trade unionist - social democrat - Federal Councilor. Edition Gutenberg, Hägendorf 1983. (with Peter Hablützel, Walo Landolf, Bruno Muralt, Ferdinand Troxler)
  • Georges Wüthrich, André Häfliger: Dölf Ogi So wa (h) r es! Schweizer Illustrierte / Weltbild, Olten 2012, ISBN 978-3-03812-427-6 . (with Jürg Stüssi-Lauterburg.)

Book contributions

  • The other culture. In: Switzerland. Yearbook of the NHG. 1972.
  • The parties in Switzerland - have-nots in a concert of power. In: Christian Fehr: Heil Dir Helvetia. Edition Gutenberg, Hägendorf 1984.
  • Public favor, published disfavor. In: Peter Graf, Jean-Noël Rey : Otto Stich and the art of the possible. Zytglogge-Verlag, Gümligen 1987.
  • Political Cult or Political Culture? A plea for the popular initiative. In: Switzerland - departure from the delay. Weltwoche-Verlag, Zurich 1991.
  • Pictures of a Federal Councilor. On the public perception of Ruth Dreifuss. In: Isabella Maria Fischli: "Dreifuss is our name." A politician, a family, a country. Pendo Verlag, Zurich / Munich 2002.
  • The sixth Federal Council. Foreword. In: Otto Stich: I just stayed simple. Autobiography. Schwabe Verlag Johannes Petri, Basel 2011.
  • The Swiss voter in the Federal Council room. In: Voting campaigns, mediation of politics in referendum democracy. Ed. by Heike Scholten and Klaus Kamps. Springer Fachmedien, Wiesbaden 2014.
  • Resistance for freedom as an eternal task. In: Matthias Müller, Hans Luginbühl: Federal Councilor Maurer speaks. Verlag Merkel im Effingerhof, Lenzburg 2016.
  • Fundamental right of the future. In: Social Future - The Unconditional Basic Income - The Debate. Ed. by Philip Kovce . Free Spiritual Life Publishing House, Stuttgart 2017.
  • Unique Federal Council. In: Conseiller fédéral, A look at the world of power. By Nicolas Brodard (photographer). Till Schaap Edition, Bern 2019.

Columns

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Federal Chancellery ( Memento of December 10, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ^ A b Oswald Sigg: The liberated philanthropist. Aargauer Zeitung , April 12, 2012, accessed on March 18, 2016.
  3. ^ Ex-Federal Council spokesman is fighting against the government. In: tagesanzeiger.ch/. Retrieved January 7, 2017 .
  4. ^ "Le revenu universel serait le tournant social du capitalisme" . In: lematin.ch/ . ( lematin.ch [accessed on January 7, 2017]).
  5. ↑ Oswald Sigg on the basic income: «We also have to think the impossible» . In: az Aargauer Zeitung . ( aargauerzeitung.ch [accessed on January 7, 2017]).
  6. ^ Oswald Sigg: Report on the social situation in the Parisian banlieue. In: half / Moitiè. Retrieved October 31, 2019 .
  7. ↑ Microtax. In: www.microtax.ch. Retrieved December 14, 2016 .
  8. ↑ New initiative: This is how the unconditional basic income will one day be financed . In: az Aargauer Zeitung . ( aargauerzeitung.ch [accessed on July 14, 2018]).
  9. ^ Federal Chancellery BK: Political Rights. Retrieved March 16, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Sigg, Oswald
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss civil servant
DATE OF BIRTH March 18, 1944
PLACE OF BIRTH Zurich