Viola Amherd does not want to switch to the UVEK

Even Doris Leuthard is said to have recently implored her to change departments. The pressure from parts of her party, but especially from the left, has been huge in recent days. But Viola Amherd didn’t want to. On Thursday, she watched as the bourgeois majority of four distributed the departments among themselves. While FDP Federal Councilor Karin Keller-Sutter secured the finances, Albert Rösti, the SVP newcomer, received the UVEK. Amherd and the Mitte party remain in the defense department – ​​”out of conviction,” as she tweeted after the meeting.

This waiver raises questions. Because the versatile environment, transport, energy and communications department stands for everything Amherd always wanted to be: powerful and centre-left. The UVEK decides about the public service in the peripheral regions, about the infrastructure, spatial planning, water rates, the wolf, you can reward or appease old party colleagues with new tasks at the SRG or the post office – in short: the UVEK is above all that Key department for the Republic of Valais, Amherd’s home canton.

Their predecessors, the Valais Federal Councilors Josef Escher (1950-1954) and Roger Bonvin (1962-1973), already knew what they had in the then Postal and Railway Department and the Transport and Energy Department. And of course Viola Amherd is also aware of the importance of the uvek. As a national councilor, she was on the relevant commission, and as a federal councilor, she was the deputy of the resigning UVEK boss, Simonetta Sommaruga. She would have gotten the department on Thursday if she had wanted it, could be heard in the run-up to the castling even in power-hungry FDP and SVP circles. But Amherd didn’t want to. Why?

With an outstanding result to Vice President

There are political as well as personal explanations for this, evil as well as benevolent. What always goes down well in Switzerland is the story of continuity. It is good for the country that Amherd can continue the reforms in the defense department, writes Center National Councilor Elisabeth Schneider-Schneiter on Twitter. The same applies to Swiss sport, writes Béatrice Wertli, formerly Secretary General of the then CVP and now Director of the Swiss Gymnastics Federation. In the army, Amherd’s decision is soberly acknowledged. Continuity is described here as “stability” and “planning security”. However, the whereabouts of the boss is not interpreted as a sign of appreciation. But they would have preferred to have welcomed her to “Pilum 22” the other day.

“Due to other important commitments”, the defense minister did not have time to visit the largest defense exercise in 30 years with over 5,000 soldiers. Your track record as head of the VBS is already impressive. Unlike her predecessors, she managed to acquire a new combat aircraft. In addition, the army budget was increased under her aegis. It doesn’t matter whether this is their merit or simply “owed” to the course of the world. As a former tennis player, she knows: In the end, only the points count, not how you played.

You can’t blame her for wanting to refine her unexpected successes. When the departments were distributed four years ago, she was condemned to be the first VBS boss. Is she now staying voluntarily in order to work on her own monument in the remaining years? In 2024 she will preside over the Federal Council for the first time, which will be the high point of a remarkable political career. She cleared the first hurdle for this on Wednesday. The Federal Assembly elected her Vice President with 207 votes. This puts her in the same league as Willi Ritschard (207 votes in the 1977 presidential election), Eduard von Steiger (208 votes, 1949) and: Roger Bonvin (214 votes, 1966).

This is also part of the Amherd phenomenon: many people find fault with her, almost everyone likes her. Immediately after the division of departments, criticism from within the ranks was muted. Here, too, we know that it will be difficult to accept Leuthard’s legacy without having to fundamentally question it. The energy strategy of the former UVEK boss requires a critical review. Amherd – and with her the center – want to avoid this self-reflection in the upcoming election year.

Before she was elected to the Federal Council, she had said that there was no need for gas-fired combined cycle power plants and that savings in electricity consumption were enough to master the nuclear phase-out. Four years later, an emergency power plant is built in Birr that would require 1,700 tons of heating oil or 2 million cubic meters of natural gas per day – eight turbines as a deafening memorial to the energy policy of recent years. Amherd prefers to wait for the first delivery of the F-35 fighter jets, which should arrive from 2027 and thus at the end of their second term. Perhaps, as Minister of Sport, she will also succeed in bringing the European Women’s Football Championship to Switzerland in 2025. Highlights are waiting for Amherd in the DDPS, and high heart rates in the UVEK.

“With Rösti, Valais has a second Federal Councilor”

“As head of the Uvek you are very exposed. The task is enormous,” says Roger Nordmann. The SP faction leader is indicating what others do not want to say publicly: Amherd simply has no “Watts” for the energy department. “With this decision to forgo the UVEK, the middle rises to the political C-League,” Nordmann doubles. The Vaud National Council is latently suspected of wanting to distract from its own failure by criticizing Amherd. With the election of Elisabeth Baume-Schneider to the Federal Council and the appointment of Alain Berset in the Interior Department, Nordmann’s own Federal Council ambitions and the SP’s claims to power were checked by the bourgeoisie within a few hours. But Nordmann is not alone in his assessment.

Christophe Darbellay says that Viola Amherd is certainly an excellent VBS boss. For the Valais economic director and long-time CVP president, it is also clear: “The party is missing a historic opportunity to shape Switzerland’s energy and climate future.” After all, with Albert Rösti a politician received the UVEK who is pragmatic and also knows the problems of the mountain area well. He stands here in the tradition of Adolf Ogi. “I remain an optimist – with Albert Rösti in the UVEK, Valais has a second Federal Councilor,” says Darbellay. The debate about the appropriate representation of the regions in the Bundesrat had gradually calmed down.