How Maillard quietly secured his influence in the Bundesrat

Around Wednesday’s elections to the Federal Council, the name of a politician who was not a candidate at all was mentioned quite often: that of Pierre-Yves Maillard (54), Vaud SP National Councilor and President of the Swiss Confederation of Trade Unions.

Whether it was an interpretation of the choice of candidates by the comrades or the surprise victory of Elisabeth Baume-Schneider (58) – at some point Maillard always came into play.

This has to do with a theory that is common in federal Bern, according to which the man of power Maillard was actually aiming for the successor of federal councilor Alain Berset (50).

However, with the election of Baume-Schneider from the Jura, this option is off the table, as the Social Democrats now have two francophones in the Bundesrat and a German-Swiss is likely to be preferred for the next vacancy. With Eva Herzog (60) from Basel, on the other hand, the departure of Berset would have cleared the way for a French SP member.

This consideration would have motivated many ordinary people to vote for the Jura on December 7.

Like pitch and brimstone

Because Maillard is polarizing. Although he is seen by his opponents as a reliable ally and negotiator, he is also a dogmatist. Nowhere is this more visible than in the Europe dossier, where the unions have been pushing the federal government, parliament and the business community for years. Maillard played a key role in sinking the framework deal on May 26, 2021.

Still, the Maillard story doesn’t seem to work.

In any case, those around him claimed that he not only chose Baume-Schneider, but also actively courted her. At the congress of the trade union federation on November 26 in Interlaken BE even important votes were postponed so that the chairman came to the SP group meeting in Bern in time to get Baume-Schneider on the ticket. So was everything completely different?

The relationship between Maillard and Baume-Schneider is decisive. The two are friends and, according to companions, also love bad luck and brimstone politically. Like Maillard, Baume-Schneider lived for a while in Lausanne VD, and as members of cantonal governments in western Switzerland, they also maintained professional exchanges.

A symbol of this closeness is a black and white cat in the Baume-Schneider household: it comes from a litter of Maillard’s pet.

What role will Baume-Schneider play?

The result of December 7 seems to have thwarted the plans of another prominent comrade: party leader Roger Nordmann (49), who previously campaigned for a pure SP women’s ticket, has to give up his own ambitions of the Bundesrat in the medium term. Maillard, on the other hand, would never have been elected to government anyway, some MPs are convinced.

Instead, the country’s top civil servant now has an important trump card in Baume-Schneider: he can count on a close confidant in the executive branch in the future. As Minister of Justice, the newly elected member will sit on the three-member Europe Commission of the Federal Council. This is a stroke of luck for Maillard – but not for his opponent, Federal President Ignazio Cassis (61).

A rumor currently circulating among insiders gives an idea of ​​how much his European policy field revolves around the union boss: the foreign minister recently confided to his government colleagues in an informal setting that Maillard was satisfied with the status of the exploratory talks in Brussels. Whereupon the two federal councilors of the SP protested irritably to the trade unionist – and Cassis’s statement turned out to be a misunderstanding.

The episode cannot be confirmed in the FDFA, Vice Chancellor André Simonazzi denies there was any such dialogue at a meeting of the Federal Council. However, the episode is typical of how delicate the situation is.

In recent weeks, Cassis’ political supporters have been eagerly arousing confidence about the exploratory talks with the EU: Brussels has signaled concessions on the most important points.

De Ticino wants to speed things up and finally get a negotiating mandate from the government. But the trade union federation puts him on the brakes. One is “still a long way from a solution,” said Pierre-Yves Maillard in the Sunday Blick on November 27.

His confidante Elisabeth Baume-Schneider should play an even more key role. She could make the blockage worse – or contribute as a mediator to a solution.