2024 - Corona indiscretions - New emails between Lauener and Walder public

“Switzerland at the weekend” has again published recordings of excerpts from e-mails in the event of indiscretion during the corona pandemic.
In the numerous e-mails between Alain Berset’s former head of communications Peter Lauener and Ringier boss Marc Walder, the Federal President is explicitly mentioned several times.
He is also mentioned by name in a greeting.

As “Switzerland at the weekend” shows, Peter Lauener wrote to Ringier boss Marc Walder on Friday, November 6, 2020: “Best regards from Federal Councilor Berset.” This after he had informed Walder that it was currently not realistic to find a majority for further corona measures in the Federal Council.

The newspaper had already published further content of the e-mail traffic between Lauener and Walder in its edition from last Saturday.

Legend:

A selection of emails published by the CH Media newspapers. On November 6, 2020, Lauener wrote to Walder: “Best regards from Federal Councilor Berset.”

Screenshot SRF

Abundance of e-mails as an indication?

Under the recordings of various other e-mails, the “Switzerland at the weekend” writes: “The abundance of e-mails refutes claims that only two or very few e-mails were sent.” And the newspaper concludes that the excerpts suggested “that Berset hardly knew ‘nothing’.”

The SVP demands the publication of the minutes of the interrogation of Federal President Alain Berset on the Corona indiscretions. The population has a right to transparency, said party president Marco Chiesa to the Tamedia newspapers. According to Chiesa, the SVP demands a complete explanation from Berset. This could have explained itself long ago. He described the Federal President as “solely responsible”. Apparently there was “a pact between the Ringier publishing house and the interior department”, the Ticino Council of States explained in the interview published on Saturday: “Ultimately, the goal was: Berset had to be the best in the media. That’s why we now have an institutional crisis.”

From the point of view of the SVP President, whether Berset knew about Lauener’s activities is of secondary importance: If Berset did not know what his head of communications had done, this would be “a blatant leadership failure,” he said in an interview. If he was in the picture, there was no need to discuss it any further anyway.

Unlike the Zurich SVP National Councilor Alfred Heer, Chiesa did not directly call on the Minister of Health to resign. He should take the consequences himself, he merely demanded.

On the SRF show “Arena” on Friday evening spoke of two relevant emails from SP Vice President and National Councilor Jacqueline Badran (ZH).

The CH media meanwhile want to have had insight into more than 180 contacts between Lauener and Berset.