Céline Amaudruz launches bid for Swiss Federal Council

Swiss People’s Party (SVP) member of parliament Céline Amaudruz has announced her candidacy for the Federal Council, Switzerland’s executive government, SRF reports. She made the announcement at a news conference in Geneva, saying she chose the venue to highlight the border canton’s ties to Switzerland.

Amaudruz, an SVP vice-president, dismissed criticism from German-speaking Switzerland. “I have defended the SVP’s values for years,” she said. Publisher and former SVP parliamentarian Roger Köppel had called a possible bid by Amaudruz a “monumental mistake”, arguing she carried little political weight in Bern and lacked support within the party.

While Amaudruz largely follows the SVP line, she takes more liberal positions on some social issues. She opposed a party initiative to stop health insurers paying for abortions, supported paternity leave and backs allowing egg donation. At the news conference, she called questions about whether she could serve as a Federal Council member while raising two young children “absolutely inappropriate” in 2026. She said such questions could undermine efforts to bring more women into the workforce.

Amaudruz told SRF that these differences were not part of the party’s core identity. On what she described as its central issues, she said she fully supported the SVP’s positions: opposition to closer ties with Europe, a strict approach to immigration and secure borders.

She also criticised the proposed package of agreements with the European Union, saying Switzerland’s independence and sovereignty were at stake. She called it the country’s biggest challenge, but said that if elected she would represent the position of the Federal Council as a whole.

Amaudruz also called for French-speaking Switzerland to be represented on the SVP’s ticket, saying it needed at least one candidate from the region. She defended Geneva against criticism from German-speaking Switzerland, describing it as the largest contributor to the country’s fiscal equalisation system and its “second economic lung”. She also pointed to the Geneva business figures who were part of the Swiss delegation that travelled to the Oval Office to meet Donald Trump during the tariff dispute with the United States.

Amaudruz is the SVP’s preferred candidate in French-speaking Switzerland. She must now persuade the party’s parliamentary group that she can win support nationally.