Swiss ambassador to UN appointed to Council of Europe

Swiss UN Ambassador Baeriswyl moves to Strasbourg Keystone-SDA

Pascale Baeriswyl, Swiss ambassador to the UN in New York for five years, will move on to Strasbourg in summer 2026. There she will become Switzerland’s permanent representative to the Council of Europe.

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As the Swiss government announced on Wednesday, it has appointed the 57-year-old as Switzerland’s new ambassador to this institution. In response to an enquiry, the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA) announced that Baeriswyl’s move to Strasbourg was a regular transfer.

“The transfer discipline stipulates that diplomatic personnel regularly change their place of employment.” Switzerland’s current ambassador to the Council of Europe in Strasbourg is Claude Wild. He is retiring, as the FDFA also reported on enquiry.

Baeriswyl’s successor at the UN in New York will be Frank Grütter. He is currently the Swiss ambassador in Singapore and was previously head of the FDFA’s UN Division.

There will also be a change in the post of Head of the Permanent Mission of Switzerland to the United Nations Office at Geneva and other international organisations in the city on the Rhone: Thomas Gürber will replace Jürg Lauber. The latter has been elected Vice-President of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

First Swiss State Secretary

Baeriswyl took up the post of Swiss ambassador to the UN in New York in summer 2020, helping to shape Switzerland’s two-year term as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, which lasted from the beginning of 2023 to the end of 2024.

The lawyer, historian and linguist already held an important office before her stay in New York: She coordinated Switzerland’s negotiations with the European Union between April 2017 and January 2018.

From 2008 to 2013, Baeriswyl worked for the Swiss UN mission in New York as a Security Council observer. Baeriswyl was the first woman to be appointed State Secretary in 2016.

Translated from German by DeepL/jdp

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