Ursula Plassnik

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Ursula Plassnik with Harald Sonderegger, President of the Vorarlberg State Parliament, in Bregenz (2018)

Ursula Plassnik (born May 23, 1956 in Klagenfurt , Carinthia ) is an Austrian diplomat and politician for the ÖVP . From 2004 she was Austrian Foreign Minister as the successor to Benita Ferrero-Waldner . Until December 2008, she was a member of the federal governments Schüssel II and Gusenbauer . She is currently the Austrian ambassador to Switzerland .

Life

Ursula Plassnik grew up in a social-democratic family of teachers in Klagenfurt, attended the Ingeborg-Bachmann-Gymnasium in Klagenfurt and spent the 1971/72 school year as an exchange student at the high school in Foxcroft, Virginia , USA . On July 3, 1978, she received her doctorate. iur. at the University of Vienna . As a post-graduate student, she studied at the College of Europe in Bruges . Professionally, she initially worked as a research assistant at the Institute for Roman Law and Ancient Legal History , after which she completed her judicial year . After a bank internship in the legal department of Creditanstalt , she worked in various positions for the Austrian Foreign Ministry from 1981:

  • 1981–1983: Austrian CSCE delegations to the follow-up meeting in Madrid
  • 1984–1986: Austrian Embassy in Bern
  • 1986–1987: Austrian CSCE delegations to the Vienna follow-up meeting
  • 1987–1990: Austrian representation in the Council of Europe
  • 1990–1993: EFTA Secretariat, Geneva
  • 1994: Management of the St. Gallen Foundation for International Studies
  • November 1994: Federal Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Economic Policy Section and EU Coordination, most recently head of the General Affairs and European Council department.

When she worked on the staff entrusted with the preparations for the Austrian EU presidency, she became acquainted with Wolfgang Schüssel , and from July 1, 1997, he was appointed head of the vice chancellor's cabinet . Until then, Plassnik was considered politically neutral or more closely related to the SPÖ . In 2000 Plassnik should have become permanent representative at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg , but then stayed in Vienna to support Schüssel, although she is said to have been very skeptical of the ÖVP- FPÖ coalition.

Plassnik was the Chancellor's head of cabinet until January 15, 2004 ; then she became Austrian ambassador to Switzerland .

On October 18, 2004, she was proposed by the ÖVP federal party executive as the successor to Benita Ferrero-Waldner and on October 20, she was sworn in as Austrian Foreign Minister of the federal government Schüssel . She officially joined the ÖVP just a few days earlier. She also remained in office in Gusenbauer's federal government . The later Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg was her press spokesman at the time and also carried out this task under her successor Michael Spindelegger (ÖVP).

On November 23, 2008, Plassnik announced that she would no longer be a member of the Faymann I government due to dissatisfaction with the EU compromise agreed with the SPÖ .

She has since performed her mandate in the National Council. On July 6, 2011 she gave her farewell speech in Parliament and in December 2011 she moved to Paris as ambassador .

Ursula Plassnik is a member of the Executive Committee of the Trilateral Commission .

In December 2015, the Austrian Council of Ministers decided to move to Bern as ambassador . On September 1, 2016, she presented the Federal President Johann Schneider-Ammann with her credentials.

Awards (excerpt)

Web links

 Wikinews: Ursula Plassnik  - in the news
Commons : Ursula Plassnik  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Is Plassnik going to Washington? , Kleine Zeitung, November 28, 2008
  2. Remise de lettres de créance , JORF n ° 299 du 27 December 2011, p. 22276, text n ° 2, NOR MAEP0750061G.
  3. ^ The Trilateral Commission - Membership List March 2017. Retrieved April 23, 2017 .
  4. ^ Ministry of Foreign Affairs: Decision of the Council of Ministers on filling management positions abroad . APA notification dated December 9, 2015, accessed December 11, 2015.
  5. Austrian Embassy Bern - The Ambassador , accessed on October 25, 2016.
  6. List of all decorations awarded by the Federal President for services to the Republic of Austria from 1952 (PDF; 6.9 MB)
predecessor Office successor
? Austrian Ambassador to Switzerland
1984–1986
?
Hubert hot Austrian Ambassador to France
2011–2016
Walter Grahammer
Jürgen Meindl Austrian ambassador to Switzerland
since 2016
-