ZURICH – The Swiss government agreed on Thursday to make Karin Keller-Sutter from the centre-right Liberals the country’s new finance minister in a cabinet reshuffle sparked by the resignations of two members.
Keller-Sutter replaces Ueli Maurer from the start of next year in the seven-member cabinet. Maurer, a fiscal hawk from the right-wing Swiss People’s Party (SVP), had announced in September he would retire.
Albert Roesti, a newcomer to the cabinet from the SVP, will take charge of the environment and energy ministry.
Fellow newcomer Elisabeth Baume-Schneider from the leftist Social Democrats replaces Keller-Sutter at the justice ministry.
Under the Swiss model of consensus government, the cabinet roles are distributed to the different parties according to their representation in parliament.
Other members of the cabinet kept their jobs following the reshuffle, including Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis.
The changes which did take place were triggered by the retirement of Maurer and Energy Minister Simonetta Sommaruga, a Social Democrat, who is stepping down to help care for her husband, who is recovering from a stroke.
Among the challenges facing the government are a financial deficit expect to reach 4.1 billion Swiss francs ($4.38 billion) this year mainly due to extraordinary expenditure to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic.
($1 = 0.9355 Swiss francs)