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Bad air at Avenir Suisse: As SonntagsBlick learned, certain powers on the supervisory board of the liberal think tank want to get rid of Peter Grünenfelder. A shortlist of exchange candidate names should already exist. The director of the think tank has received a lot of criticism since he took office almost seven years ago. But now the situation seems to be escalating.
The reason was Grünenfelder’s unsuccessful election campaign for a seat on the Zurich government council. With his cutting rhetoric and sharp criticism of both the canton’s spending policy and the head of education, Silvia Steiner (64, Die Mitte), he not only made himself unpopular with the political establishment. He was also poorly received by voters.
Partially surprised the FDP guy with annoying position references. Before his candidacy, he was still striving for the framework agreement and further development of relations with the European Union. During the election campaign, however, he hardly commented on how to deal with Brussels. Rather, he sought closeness to the SVP and proudly announced that Christoph Blocher (82) had recommended him for election.
It was no use. Not that the 55-year-old discussed his family life with a baby and his wife in public. Grünenfelder is married to FDP national councilor Christa Markwalder (47) and has one child with her.
The “NZZ” called Grünenfelder “the failed one” in an election analysis. He himself thought he was the right candidate, with rough edges. He reacted defiantly to his defeat: “The time is clearly not yet ripe for a broad renewal in the canton of Zurich.”
Think tank as FDP instantaneous heater
The underlying reason for the split is that Grünenfelder Avenir Suisse is inextricably linked to the FDP. Admittedly, he had already converted the think tank into a flow heater for FDP positions. But at the latest when he entered the race for the governing council, it became clear that there was no longer a match between the party and Avenir Suisse.
“Meanwhile, Avenir Suisse has become somewhat of a think tank of the FDP,” said economist Peter Buomberger (73), one of the initiators of the organization, a year ago in the left-wing newspaper PS. For some board members, Grünenfelder has a no-go enter zone.
His predecessors also had a clear liberal position. But neither former “NZZ” CEO Gerhard Schwarz (71) nor Thomas Held (76) were members of any party. They took the liberty of giving food for thought in all directions – and also scandalized the FDP with their views.
33 managers, almost all men
Avenir Suisse’s Supervisory Board is made up of 33 mostly male business leaders representing the largest companies in Switzerland: heavyweights such as Paul Bulcke (Néstle), Jörg Reinhardt (Novartis), Peter Voser (ABB) and Sergio Ermotti (Swiss Re). CS chairman Axel Lehmann is also a member of the committee.
Chairman of the Board of Trustees is Michel Liès (69) from Zurich Insurance. The Luxembourger also heads the so-called management committee, the foundation’s actual center of power, responsible for overseeing operational activities and approving thematic priorities.
SonntagsBlick contacted Michel Liès with questions about the future of Peter Grünenfelder and possible successors. He left the request unanswered. The St. Gallic professor of Reto Föllmi (47), also on the executive committee, declined to comment by telephone. Industrialist Giorgio Behr (74) and Andreas Schmid, who was chairman of Avenir Suisse until 2020 and is now a member of the nomination committee, also did not respond.
The former BKW boss Suzanne Thoma (61), now head of the industrial group Sulzer, vice-chairman of the foundation and chairman of the nomination committee, only says that she cannot comment on the problems of the think tank because she is not aware of any. Peter Grünenfelder himself reacted irritated to questions on the phone about his future at Avenir Suisse and whether he still felt supported by the board of directors. He was not ready to comment.
But will there be a scandal soon, should Grünenfelder leave the liberal think tank? “Anything is possible,” says a board member who asked for secrecy. Grünenfelder remains, but some more conservative, EU-skeptical exponents are likely to reconsider their commitment.
In Lucerne, a competitive platform is being created with the Swiss Economic Policy Foundation led by Professor Christoph Schattegger (50) and former editor-in-chief of “NZZ” René Scheu (48). It is positioned more conservatively and has no partisan bias. Financiers include industrialists such as Alfred N. Schindler and Michael Pieper.
*The journalist Beat Schmid writes about financial issues in the Sunday paper Blick. He is the publisher of the online medium tippinpoint.ch
Source:Blick
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