Alain Berset

Alain Berset
Member of the Swiss Federal Council
Incumbent
Assumed office 1 January 2012
Preceded by	Micheline Calmy-Rey
Head of the Department of Home Affairs
Incumbent
Assumed office 1 January 2012
Preceded by	Didier Burkhalter
Personal details
Born	(1972-04-09) 9 April 1972 (age 40) Fribourg, Switzerland
Political party	Social Democratic Party
Alma mater	University of Neuchâtel

Alain Berset (born 9 April 1972 in Fribourg) is a Swiss politician of the Social Democratic Party. Since 1 January 2012, he is a member of the Swiss Federal Council, the seven member Swiss government, and head of the Federal Department of Home Affairs. Before being elected to the Federal Council in December 2011, he was a member of the Swiss Council of States for the Canton of Fribourg since 2003, serving as the chamber's president during the 2008/2009 term.

Personal life and education

Born in Fribourg, the son of a teacher and a bookseller,^[1] Berset studied political science and economics at the University of Neuchâtel, where he received a masters degree in political science in 1996 and a Ph.D in economics in 2005 with a dissertation about the role of international migration upon local working conditions.^[2]

Berset is married to Muriel Zeender Berset and father of three children. The family lives in Belfaux, a village near Fribourg.^[3]

Career

Berset worked as assistant lecturer and researcher at the Institute for Regional Economics of the University of Neuchâtel from 1996 till 2000, when he moved to the Hamburg Institute for Economic Research for a year. In 2000 he became a member of the Constituent Assembly of the canton of Fribourg and president of its social democrat parliamentary group till 2004. He also served on the Belfaux communal parliament from 2001 to 2003. In 2002, he became strategic consultant to the Department of Economic Affairs of the canton of Neuchâtel.^[4] In 2003 he was elected to the Swiss Council of States for the canton of Fribourg as a member of the Social Democratic Party becoming the youngest member of the Council of States,^[5] and the party's parliamentary group's vicepresident in December 2005. He was also a member of the parliamentary assembly of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. After his reelection in 2007, he was elected the State Council's vicepresident and served as its president during 2008/2009.^[4]

On 14 December 2011, he was elected with 126 votes out of 245 to the Swiss Federal Council, the seven member Swiss government, as one of the Social Democratic Party's two official candidates to succeed head of the Department of Foreign Affairs Micheline Calmy-Rey, who had resigned from the Federal Council.^[6] Berset became head of the Federal Department of Home Affairs as its former head Didier Burkhalter changed to the Department of Foreign Affairs.^[7]

Works

Berset is the author of several books and some 30 articles on economic development, migration and regional development.^[8]

• Main d'oeuvre étrangère et diversité des compétences, Editions Harmattan, Paris 2000
• Transformation des systèmes locaux d'emploi et compétitivité des régions: le rôle des migrations internationales, thesis for doctorate in economics, Editions Universitaires, Neuchâtel 2005
• Circulation of Competencies and Dynamics of Regional Production Systems”, International Journal of Multicultural Societies, vol.8, no.1, 2006, pp. 61–83, with O. Crevoisier
• Changer d'ère, pour un nouveau contrat gouvernemental, Éditions Favre, Lausanne 2007, with C. Levrat
• “Ciel, le Parlement a démantelé mon projet de loi; les aléas de la phase parlementaire”, in Fluckiger A., Guy-Ecabert C, Guider les parlements et les gouvernements pour mieux légiférer, Edition Schulthess, Zürich 2007 pp. 137–145

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Alain Berset

• Official website in English Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA
• Alain Berset, Speaker of the Council of States 2008/2009 The Federal Assembly - The Swiss Parliament
• Biography of Alain Berset on the website of the Swiss Parliament. (French)

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