Simonetta Sommaruga

Portrait of Sommaruga (2016)

Simonetta Myriam Sommaruga (born May 14, 1960 in Zug ; resident in Lugano and Eggiwil ) is a Swiss politician ( SP ). She has been Federal Councilor since November 2010 and Head of the Federal Department of Environment, Transport, Energy and Communication (DETEC) since January 2019 . From 2010 to 2018 she headed the Federal Department of Justice and Police (FDJP). In 2015 she was Federal President , an office that she has held again since January 1, 2020.

life and career

Simonetta Sommaruga (third from right) in the 2016 Federal Council photo

Simonetta Sommaruga at the Forum des 100 (2012)

Sommaruga grew up with two brothers and a sister in Sins , Canton Aargau . She attended high school in Immensee , Canton Schwyz , and graduated with a high school diploma . She then trained as a pianist in Lucerne , California and Rome . From 1988 to 1991 she studied English and Romance languages at the University of Friborg (Switzerland) , but without a degree.

The starting point of her political career was her work as managing director of the Foundation for Consumer Protection , which she exercised from 1993 to 1999 and which she made public in German-speaking Switzerland . From 2000 to 2010 she was President of the Foundation for Consumer Protection. From 2003 to 2008 she was President of the development aid organization Swissaid .

From 1998 to 2005 Sommaruga was a member of the municipal council (executive) of Köniz , where she was the head of the fire brigade and civil defense . From the 1999 to 2003 elections she was a national councilor . During this time the Gurten Manifesto "for a new and progressive politics" was created in 2001 : Together with the political scientist Wolf Linder , the historian Tobias Kästli and the Köniz mayor Henri Huber, she created ten theses and, according to Rudolf Strahm, provoked "harsh counterreactions" from the SP -Link in particular because of a statement to limit immigration .

From the 2003 to 2010 elections, Sommaruga was a member of the Council of States . During this time, she sat down in the book For a modern Switzerland. A practical reform plan for the Federal Concordance : "Concordance presupposes that political opponents can also trust each other - at the same time, concordance strengthens this experience."

On September 22nd, 2010 she was elected to the Federal Council with 159 votes in the fourth ballot on the occasion of the replacement election for Moritz Leuenberger . With her election, four women were represented in the Swiss Federal Council for the first time. She was confirmed in office on December 14, 2011.

On December 4, 2013, Sommaruga was elected Vice President 2014 with 180 out of 205 valid votes and finally, on December 3, 2014, with 181 out of 236 votes, as Federal President for 2015.

After the 2011 massacre in Norway , the head of the FDJP worked to ensure that the responsible investigative authorities could preventively monitor suspicious people's internet traffic in real time upon request .

Sommaruga is the godchild of Othmar Keel and daughter of his sister Marie-Therese. She was a Catholic by birth, but has left the Church.

Before moving to the city ​​of Bern, Sommaruga lived in Spiegel near Bern and is married to the writer Lukas Hartmann . Her brother-in-law is the journalist Jürg Lehmann .

Visits abroad as Federal President 2015

date	place	Country	Main reason
11th January	Paris	France	Participation in the memorial service for the victims of the Charlie Hebdo attack
January 27th	Oświęcim	Poland	Participation in the memorial event for the victims of the Auschwitz concentration camp
January 29th	Riga	Latvia	Participation in a meeting of EU justice ministers on terrorism and data protection
February 2nd	Brussels	Belgium	Meeting with EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker , EU Council President Donald Tusk and EU Parliament President Martin Schulz
February 26th	Luxembourg	Luxembourg	Meeting with Prime Minister Xavier Bettel and Grand Duke Henri
March 12th	Brussels	Belgium	Participation in the meeting of EU interior ministers
May 6th	Vienna	Austria	Meeting with Federal President Heinz Fischer and Federal Chancellor Werner Faymann
May 14th	Aachen	Germany	Meeting for the award of the Charlemagne Prize with Martin Schulz , the President of the European Parliament and seven other Heads of State (King Abdullah II , King Felipe VI , Joachim Gauck , Dalia Grybauskaitė , François Hollande , Sauli Niinistö and Petro Poroschenko )
May 18	Milan and Rome	Italy	Visit to the Expo 2015 Meeting with the Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi
6th of June	Paris	France	Attending the French Open final game between Stan Wawrinka and Novak Đoković
17th of June	Luxembourg	Luxembourg	Participation in a meeting of the EU interior ministers on the refugee problem in Europe
July 6th and 7th	Madrid	Spain	Meeting with the Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and King Felipe VI.
8th of July	Warsaw	Poland	Meeting with the Polish Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz and the Polish President Bronisław Komorowski
July 9	Luxembourg	Luxembourg	Participation in a meeting of EU Justice and Home Affairs Ministers
July 12	London	United Kingdom	Attending the Wimbledon final match between Roger Federer and Novak Đoković
13.september	Melegnano	Italy	Participation in the commemoration of the Battle of Marignano
September 14th	Brussels	Belgium	Participation in a meeting of EU interior ministers on the refugee crisis in Europe
September 15th and 16th	Ljubljana , Bled and Maribor	Slovenia	Meeting with the Slovenian President Borut Pahor Meeting with the Slovenian Prime Minister Miro Cerar
17th of September	Vaduz	Liechtenstein	Participation in the meeting of German-speaking heads of state
September 22	Brussels	Belgium	Participation in the special meeting of EU interior ministers on the refugee crisis in Europe
September 25th and 26th	New York City	United States	Participation in the United Nations Summit Meeting with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon
8th October	Luxembourg	Luxembourg	Participation in a meeting of EU justice and interior ministers and in the Western Balkans Conference
October 25-27	Addis Ababa and Jijiga	Ethiopia	Meeting with the Ethiopian President Mulatu Teschome Meeting with the Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn Visit to a refugee camp
November 9th	Brussels	Belgium	Participation in the special meeting of EU justice and interior ministers on the refugee crisis in Europe
November 11th and 12th	Valletta	Malta	Participation in the EU-Africa summit
30th of November	Paris	France	Participation in the UN climate conference
21st December	Brussels	Belgium	Meeting with EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker

On December 5, 2018, she was elected Vice President of the Federal Council for the second time. According to the rotation, the office of Federal President follows the one-year term of office as Vice-President. The election of the Federal President took place on December 11, 2019 , and she took office on January 1, 2020.

Visits abroad as Federal President 2020

date	place	Country	Main reason
January 27th	Oświęcim	Poland	Participation in the commemorative event for the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau
January 30th	Vienna	Austria	Traditional inaugural visit to Vienna, meeting with Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen and Federal Chancellor Sebastian Kurz
July 20-23	Kiev , Stanyzja Luhanska and Slovyansk	Ukraine	Meeting with President Volodymyr Zelenskyj and handover of relief supplies in the conflict area in eastern Ukraine

documentation

• The 7 federal councilors. In: SRF 1 , DOK of November 29, 2018 (50 min) ( video excerpts ).

Publications

• Gurten Manifesto for a new and progressive SP policy (with Henri Huber, Tobias Kästli, Wolf Linder). Gurten, May 10, 2001; Document online (PDF; 236 kB)
• For a modern Switzerland. A practical reform plan (edited with Rudolf H. Strahm ). Nagel & Kimche, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-312-00356-3

literature

• Peter Stettler: Simonetta Sommaruga. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland . June 9, 2011 , accessed February 22, 2020 .
• Simonetta Sommaruga in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely available)

Web links

Commons : Simonetta Sommaruga  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Simonetta Sommaruga at the Swiss Federal Council ( admin.ch )
• Simonetta Sommaruga at the Federal Department of the Environment, Transport, Energy and Communication DETEC (admin.ch)
• Simonetta Sommaruga on the website of the Federal Assembly
• Political profile of Simonetta Sommaruga (voting behavior in the National Council, 46th legislature, 1999-2003) ( Memento from January 12, 2012 in the Internet Archive )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Simonetta Sommaruga in the Munzinger archive , accessed on June 19, 2011 ( beginning of article freely accessible)
2. ^ FDJP: Federal Councilor Simonetta Sommaruga. Retrieved August 24, 2018 . 
3. ↑ SWISSAID congratulates Board Member Sommaruga . In: SWISSAID . September 22, 2010 ( swissaid.ch [accessed on August 24, 2018]).
4. ↑ ^{a b} Rudolf Strahm : The Sommaruga Method , Weltwoche, May 14, 2020
5. ↑ Simonetta Sommaruga . In: SP Switzerland . ( sp-ps.ch [accessed on August 24, 2018]).
6. ^ Federal Council elections 2011 , 20 minutes , accessed on December 14, 2011.
7. ↑ Simonetta Sommaruga becomes Vice-President of the Federal Council ( Memento from January 1, 2014 in the web archive archive.today ) Federal Assembly . December 4, 2013, accessed January 1, 2014.
8. ↑ Michael Schoenenberger: Federal Presidium: Sommaruga elected with good results. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . December 3, 2014, accessed December 3, 2014 . 
9. ↑ David Schaffner: Resistance to Big Sister . Tages-Anzeiger , July 28, 2011. Accessed July 30, 2011.
10. ↑ Michael Meier: The Bible reader: portrait . Der Bund , February 17, 2015, p. 27.
11. ^ Philipp Gut : Sommaruga and the Lehmann Brothers. In: Weltwoche edition 50/2010. January 1, 2010, accessed November 11, 2015 . 
12. ^ Frank Sieber, Claudia Baer: Federal Council election: Parliament confirms the previous government and denies the Greens entry into the Federal Council. In: nzz.ch. December 11, 2019, accessed December 11, 2019 . 

predecessor	Office	successor
Moritz Leuenberger	Member of the Swiss Federal Council 2010–	-