Tessa Huber wants to reduce red tape for young Swiss Abroad

The Swiss Abroad often have to deal with bureaucracy. For Tessa Huber, this is a reason to get involved in the Council of the Swiss Abroad. Keystone / Anthony Anex

Tessa Huber was elected to the Council of the Swiss Abroad (CSA) in spring. The molecular medicine specialist wants to reduce bureaucratic hurdles in the Council and get young Swiss Abroad more involved.

No one can be blamed for taking their time to think about running for office. This spring, just five minutes passed between the enquiry about her candidacy and the election of Tessa Huber as the second Co-Vice President of the Organisation of the Swiss Abroad (OSA) Germany.

Shortly beforehand, the 32-year-old was presented at the conference of OSA Germany as the newly elected Councillor for the Swiss Abroad.

Huber grew up in Berlin with cassettes and children’s books in Swiss German and cheese fondue at Christmas. She says it came as a shock when she realised that her friends didn’t keep up this tradition. “That’s terrible. How can you live without cheese fondue?” she asked herself at the time.

For Huber, however, the most important connection to her mother’s homeland was not through her stomach – it was through her Swiss grandparents, with whom she often spent long holidays in Basel, Lausanne and Lenk.

After her grandmother’s death, her grandfather moved to Germany to join the family. “Switzerland was at home with us and we lived there”.

Cassettes and children’s books in Swiss German and cheese fondue at Christmas: even as a child the connection to Switzerland was important to Tessa Huber. Courtesy image

For Huber, who works as a molecular scientist for a Swiss-based medical technology company, Switzerland also has a certain mentality. “The Swiss are simply a bit more relaxed. They take their time and don’t always have something to complain about,” she says.

For Huber, one thing is clear: “My home for life is Germany, but my home at heart is Switzerland.” With the death of her grandfather, Huber felt a break with her Swiss roots. “All the more reason for me to try to maintain and cultivate my connection to Switzerland.”

Bureaucracy as a trigger

A strong connection to her grandparents’ homeland is one thing, but what prompts a second-generation Swiss Abroad to get involved in the CSA, the “parliament of the Swiss Abroad”?

What is the Council of the Swiss Abroad?

The Council of the Swiss Abroad sees itself as the representative of the more than 800,000 Swiss Abroad worldwide. In its own words, it acts as the “parliament of the Swiss Abroad”, which takes up the concerns of the Swiss Abroad community and advocates for these concerns with the Swiss public and authorities.

It consists of 140 council members, 120 of whom live abroad. The committee also includes Swiss politicians who represent the interests of the Swiss Abroad in the Federal Assembly.

The simple answer: the nerve-wracking bureaucracy that Swiss citizens are exposed to abroad. She wants to fight this. Some things would have simply “foxed” her, she says. However, she didn’t have the contacts abroad to tackle it.

A bureaucratic marathon surrounding her wedding was the final straw. “My husband comes from the former Soviet Union. He was born in what is now Kazakhstan and moved to Germany with his family when he was one year old.”

The couple wanted to register the marriage in both Germany and Switzerland. However, Switzerland required an apostille on Huber’s husband’s birth certificate, which turned out to be a difficult endeavour.

“In the end, the German version of the birth certificate was recognised with a lot of ‘please, please’,” says Huber. “But I realised that it had to be easier. You need easier access without feeling like you have to read through every law to find the one paragraph that is relevant to you.”

In Swiss Review, she read about the online direct elections to the Council of the Swiss Abroad, which were held this spring in over 40 countries, including Germany. “I just wanted to give it a try.”

‘Laws don’t have to be dry’

This worked, and Huber was elected to the Council with the second-best result in Germany. The elections of the foreign delegates to the Council of the Swiss Abroad will be confirmed this weekend at the “SwissCommunity Days”, after which the work can begin.

This weekend, the Council of the Swiss Abroad (CSA) will hold its constituent meeting at the Federal Palace in Bern – for the first time as part of the new “SwissCommunity Days”:

Huber is particularly keen to support young Swiss nationals in Germany. “In my opinion, they have significant potential. Many don’t even know what opportunities and offers they can take advantage of.”

In addition, Switzerland still has a high status for young Swiss people abroad.

Do young Swiss people abroad, especially those in the second or even third generation, even want such institutionalised contact with Switzerland via an organisation? “The need for exchange is definitely there,” Huber is convinced.

One sign of this may be the composition of the new Council of the Swiss Abroad. With electronic direct elections in countries such as Germany, the Council has become younger. The interest in participation seems to be there.

Huber sees a key role for the Council of the Swiss Abroad, particularly when it comes to participation. “It’s important to show younger Swiss Abroad that they can get involved.” However, they need to be reached better first, “for example with videos on social media. Laws and standards don’t have to be dry. I see potential here to convey this in a more relaxed way than usual”. Concrete ideas already exist, “but I don’t want to get ahead of myself yet,” she says.

What is certain for the Huber, however, is that dialogue between the younger and older generations is key. “The Swiss associations remain essential, and their members must not have the feeling that we’re only looking after people outside the associations.”

There will be an initial meeting and time for exchange on August 22-23 at the SwissCommunity Days at the Federal Palace in Bern, which marks the start of the new 2025-2029 legislative period.

As an elected candidate, Huber will also be travelling to the federal capital for this – probably with the hope that she will have enough time for her favourite Swiss dish: cheese fondue, despite a full programme.

Edited by Balz Rigendinger. Translated from German by DeepL/ts