Gabriel Lüchinger – Switzerland’s relationship manager
Switzerland is navigating a world for which it is hardly suited any more. How does it keep in touch? The government relies on the skills of top diplomat Gabriel Lüchinger. A portrait.
Does anyone still need Switzerland? Its neutrality is controversial at home and in need of explanation abroad. “The world today is no longer a sedate municipal assembly, but a playground without supervision,” according to former Swiss Chancellor Walter Thurnherr. “People are fighting with their elbows out – and that’s a painful adjustment for Switzerland.”
Small states in particular are dependent on fair play and rules. “We’re more like the little second-graders in this playground,” Thurnherr told the Neue Zürcher Zeitung. “But there are also the big sixth-graders, and if we’re not careful, a sixth-grader will smack us.” That’s why Switzerland might have to coordinate with the fourth-graders, he said.
Gabriel Lüchinger’s job is to do this deal. The 49-year-old is the top Swiss diplomat, who consistently acts in the background.
Officially, Lüchinger heads the security division of the Swiss foreign ministry. In other countries, this position is known as national security adviser.
In reality, however, he has become the silent standard-bearer of Swiss multilateralism. He talks to everyone. And he always does so discreetly; he avoids media contacts.
Geneva takes centre stage this week. On Tuesday, there will be further negotiations between Ukraine and Russia, with the US also taking part. The nuclear talks between the US and Iran will continue on Thursday.
Gabriel Lüchinger has been in intensive dialogue with Iran and the US as well as with Russia and Ukraine in recent weeks.
The fact that the meetings are taking place in Geneva shows that the key players have confidence in neutral Switzerland, Thomas Greminger told SRF. Greminger is a Swiss diplomat and director of the Centre for Security Policy in Geneva. “We still need these neutrals who are able to provide such platforms for dialogue.”
Lüchinger last gave an interview in 2024, when he organised the Swiss peace conference for Ukraine at the Bürgenstock resort overlooking Lake Lucerne. Today, a foreign ministry spokesperson says Lüchinger’s list of interview requests is too long and that there is no point in asking him again.
‘Unfamiliar tasks’
“Lüchinger is a hinge. He seems inconspicuous, but he enjoys a great deal of trust everywhere,” says one foreign policy expert about this job.
Parliamentarian Josef Dittli, also a foreign policy expert, adds: “He has an incredibly high level of social competence. He is highly intelligent – and he always has time to listen.”
Other foreign policy experts describe Lüchinger as a “decent man with clear thoughts, who knows his role and fulfils his orders”, as “calm and balanced”. They even call him a “perfect example of a diplomat” and a “man for all occasions”. There is no criticism.
Lüchinger fills a role that Switzerland did not envisage – but needs. Parliamentarian and foreign policy expert Roland Büchel speaks of the “new, unfamiliar tasks” that the government is entrusting him with.
The craft of good offices
Lüchinger is everywhere but never in the limelight. When the Russian regime urges Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis to kowtow in Moscow – to lay a wreath at the grave of the unknown Russian soldier – Lüchinger is waiting by the limousine.
He flies economy class to Washington for customs talks. He travels to Iran, China and the Middle East. He always informs all those who cannot be there about anything that might interest them – unsolicited, accurately and without any vested interests.
This is the craft of the good offices. For a long time, multilateralism was the net that carried Switzerland through time in the international network. Now it is falling apart. But Switzerland remains dependent on the world – if only because of its export economy.
When US President Donald Trump imposed punitive tariffs of 39% in 2025, Lüchinger became a special envoy for the US. Where complexity turns into excessive demands, he comes into action.
The rightwing Swiss People’s Party elected him as Secretary General in 2016. In 2018, he became an advisor to Economics Minister Guy Parmelin. In 2022, the foreign ministry called him in when the Russian attack on Ukraine led to Switzerland having to declare its neutrality to its head-shaking partner countries.
Stable contact in a nervous world
Lüchinger has long been regarded as Switzerland’s best-connected diplomat. He cultivates contacts for Switzerland, which is becoming more difficult at government level because showcase diplomacy has become the new normal. And because the fifth and sixth graders play their games among themselves in the schoolyard.
What’s more, everything is always changing in Switzerland: the federal presidency every year, the embassy posts every four years. For foreign countries, the top officials and the few Swiss state secretaries have always been the most stable contacts. They will still be there after the next election.
The Ukraine Peace Conference on the Bürgenstock in 2024, an extremely ambitious project by Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis, laid the foundation for Lüchinger’s networking. While other nations were supplying weapons to Ukraine and closing ranks, Switzerland was withholding its weapons – and was in danger of being sidelined. It took a liberating blow to carry Switzerland’s traditional role into the new geopolitical situation.
Cassis wanted to bring as many – important – heads of state to Switzerland as possible: a difficult task. Lüchinger operated at his own level. He lobbied in the circle of national security advisors, all people with a direct line to the government. They know each other from conferences. They tend to think operationally rather than politically, which often simplifies things.
Lüchinger also knew about the capacities of the Swiss foreign network – he used them strategically. “We sent all the embassies around the world into action with the request to approach the national security advisors,” he told Swiss public radio SRF.
‘Corrupt and undemocratic’ EU
Lüchinger, the son of a lawyer, studied law in Bern. At the age of 22, he stood as a parliamentarian for the youth section of the Swiss People’s Party. In a letter to a newspaper in 1999 he came out against the EU: “I am not prepared to renounce our openness to the world just to belong to an organisation that is corrupt and undemocratic.”
He continued his studies in Helsinki, followed later by studies in international relations in Sweden. Back in Switzerland, he worked for the People’s Party and in the defence ministry. He was a colonel in the army and became military attaché at the Swiss embassies in Abu Dhabi and Cairo.
He stayed in the Arab world for six years, met his wife, a Jordanian, and was inspired by the Arab Spring. “The young people’s fight for democracy had a strong influence on me,” he said later.
The People’s Party then contacted him and lured him back to Switzerland in 2016 with the job of General Secretary. He became a close confidant of the party president, now Federal Councillor Albert Rösti. Shortly afterwards, he became a personal advisor to Guy Parmelin.
He was later considered for the post of Federal Chancellor, but he was in the wrong party for the job. He was also recommended as head of the Swiss intelligence service.
However, Lüchinger was drawn to diplomacy. He passed the stringent selection procedures of the foreign ministry. Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis appointed him head of security. This was a skilful move, as Cassis and his diplomatic corps were under constant attack from the People’s Party.
This party is fundamentally suspicious of cosmopolitanism. To stop the criticism, a cosmopolitan shooting star from the People’s Party is the ideal candidate. Lüchinger himself says of the job in 2024: “I’m exactly where I belong.”
Failure is part of the job
But can this man also fail? Absolutely: China, the only power with leverage at the time, was absent from the Ukraine conference on the Bürgenstock. Switzerland still lacks a binding agreement on US tariffs and the dossier is once again being managed by the economics ministry.
But glamour is not a criterion in Lüchinger’s world. He was most recently seen in Moscow with Cassis. On behalf of the OSCE, they tried to bring Russia back into an international dialogue. Expectations were low; Cassis was put on the spot and the mission was criticised internationally.
Shortly beforehand, the Iranian regime had gone on the rampage against its own population. Lüchinger was in contact with Ali Larijani, the regime’s security adviser and one of religious leader Ali Khamenei’s closest confidants. He made phone calls. The regime continued to rage unperturbed. It was like everything Lüchinger does: worth a try.
Edited by Marc Leutenegger. Translated from German by AI/ts
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