How would you describe former Swiss President Alain Berset who was elected secretary general of the Council of Europe on Tuesday?

The only real way to describe Berset is to describe him as a politician. He has had one of the steepest political careers in Swiss history. He was elected to the Council of States in 2003, which is typically where veteran politicians go, but he was only 31. He spent nine years on the council, during which he served on finance, audit, judicial, and political committees, and had one term as president of the council as well.

In late 2011 he was elected to the Swiss government, where he served 12 years as minister of the interior, during which he had two terms as president as well, including last year, which very likely was one of his advantages over Saar and [Didier] Reynders, too.

To some, Berset is a controversial figure as well though. He was dragged through the media in 2020 when a former mistress tried to blackmail him with intimate private details, and his handling of the Corona crisis, of which he was in charge as minister of the interior, didn't appeal to everyone. He has also been accused of being a little too friendly with Ringier, one of Switzerland's biggest media houses, and of passing on inside information, though that investigation never got very far.

How does Berset compare with Indrek Saar?

Berset is a heavyweight. He's got 22 state visits as president on his record, and was in an active government role for more than a decade, during which he often met his European counterparts and got to know them very well. You can't forget, he only just left his post in the Swiss government last year, so it's all very fresh still.

Saar on the other hand comes across as a somewhat accidental candidate without anywhere near the network Berset could rely on.

In your view, did Saar have a chance against Berset?

No. On a ticket of three, handed down by the member states' ministerial council in order of preference, he wasn't the favorite. Saar also had a substantial statistical disadvantage, running against the arguably most prolific statesman of the EU's fourth-largest trading partner. I'm personally not a huge fan of Berset, but a look at a couple of numbers is enough to see how big the difference really is.

In Switzerland, the minister of the interior doesn't deal with internal security, but with matters of social security and public health. This means Berset was in charge of regulating Switzerland's pharmaceutical exports, for example, which amount to over €100 billion a year. In the Council of State's committees, Berset audited government spending, overseeing a state and budget five or six times that of Estonia.

Culture is also part of Berset's former portfolio, by the way, and as a Swiss French speaker, he represents a cultural minority. So Saar didn't even have any of that going for himself.

But what's perhaps the most important advantage overall is Berset's plain political experience. Switzerland is a confederation. The government has to constantly negotiate with the cantons, all of which have systems, parliaments, and elected governments of their own. In that sense, he has exactly the kind of political experience he'll need at the head of the European Council.

Berset's backing by the Swiss government can't be ignored either. He had a team of four at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that helped him with everything, from strategy to trips to arranging meetings. He had the full resources of the Swiss government at his disposal. I've read that the government even made its airplane available should he have needed it.

Compared to all that, Estonia's candidacy strikes me as tactical. I believe that for this government, getting [Prime Minister] Kaja Kallas a high European position was far more important than helping Saar. Adding to this, Switzerland also absolutely needed this. Europe is a great big mess for Switzerland these days. The bilateral negotiations are going nowhere, and nobody understands Swiss neutrality in the face of the Ukraine war. They needed a success, I think.

In Estonia, the election was widely followed because there was an Estonian candidate. How was the election covered in Switzerland? Was there a lot of media interest?

The media followed Berset's campaign in great detail. My impression was that they were waiting to accuse him of wasting taxpayer money or something of the sort, but that didn't happen. His victory is most important to the political institutions, I don't think the population will pay a lot of attention to what happens next.

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