Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Pascal Couchepin, one of the seven members of the ruling Federal Government (cabinet) in Switzerland, resigned early Friday morning. The resignation of the 67-year-old councilor who has been in the government for 11 years, has been expected for some weeks and comes at the end of a parliamentary session. Couchepin is giving a conference Friday morning; the initial announcements did not provide details or an explanation for the resignation, which takes effect 31 October 2009.

His departure leaves open a seat on the council and is likely to lead to a scramble among the four main political parties.

Couchepin twice served as president of Switzerland, in 2003 and 2008. He was responsible for the finance ministry for several years and is currently in charge of the ministry of the interior, which includes health. He has recently come under attack for his plans to revise the health system.

Related: Swissinfo, and in French: Le Temps, TSR

Posted by Ellen Wallace on 12 June 2009 at 9:23 | permalink
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported
This work by genevalunch.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported.
        Post Comment  
 

News story, GenevaLunch, 12 June 2009.

Filed under: Politics

Tags: , , ,

We are happy to have your comments, which are approved before they appear: please remember to be courteous and brief. We accept only comments directly related to an article. We do not accept comment spam - messages sent to more than one site. We do not publish comments if the e-mail address is not legitimate. Thank you!

Comments

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported
This work by genevalunch.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported.