Former Swiss President Alain Berset, 52, was elected secretary general of the Council of Europe on Tuesday for five years, announced the parliamentary body of this institution monitoring human rights on the continent.
“Congratulations to Alain Berset, who has just been elected Secretary General of the Council of Europe for a five-year term! », indicated on its X account the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council (PACE), whose members elected Mr. Berset in the second round.
He will take office on September 18, when he will succeed Croatian Marija Pejcinovic Buric, whose term was marked by the exclusion of Russia following the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The Belgian Didier Reynders, outgoing European Commissioner for Justice, and the Estonian Indrek Saar, former Minister of Culture, were also candidates to head the Council of Europe, which brings together 46 member states.
For 12 years, this member of the Socialist Party held the portfolio of Internal Affairs within the Swiss federal government and it was in this position, which covers health issues, that he had to manage the most serious crisis of his career : the COVID-19 pandemic.
At the height of this crisis, he was threatened with death and placed under police protection, something extremely rare in Switzerland.
Alain Berset also held the rotating presidency of the Swiss Confederation twice in 2018 and 2023. It is an essentially one-year ceremonial position that federal advisors hold with their ministry. It was as president of the confederation that Alain Berset was able to welcome his friend and neighbor, French President Emmanuel Macron, last year for a rare state visit.
Married and father of three children, Mr. Berset was born on April 9, 1972 in Friborg (central-west Switzerland). He studied political science, from which he graduated in 1996, and economic sciences, from which he obtained a doctorate since 2005, in Neuchâtel.
Founded in 1949 in Strasbourg, the Council of Europe has brought together 46 countries since the exclusion of Russia.