Roger Köppel is on the move. “I have to catch the train to Zurich,” he grumbles one afternoon in the lobby of the Swiss Parliament when asked for a brief interview, a briefcase in his hand and his coat over his arm. He takes the business card, promises a meeting soon, then rushes off.
The journalist Köppel has been a member of the right-wing conservative Swiss People’s Party (SVP) in the National Council since 2015. But the 57-year-old has not really felt at home in the Parliament Building in Bern, so it still seems to this day. He’s often missing, the tabloid has already had him twice View elected “Absence King” in the National Council. Köppel, whose main job is a publisher and editor-in-chief of world week is. Under his leadership, the once more left-liberal magazine has developed into the mouthpiece of Swiss right-wing populists.
Roger Köppel wants to concentrate on his company
Now Köppel apparently thinks that his two jobs don’t get along well. On Friday he announced that after two legislatures his political office should be over: “I will continue my work on the National Council until the elections in autumn,” he wrote in a statement. After that, however, he wanted to “make room for new forces from the canton of Zurich”.
The world week I have developed positively in recent years, but now the further development of his company requires his full attention. He also wanted to avoid possible conflicts of interest between the increasingly international orientation of the world week and avoid his political activity.
In fact, Köppel’s dual role has repeatedly strained the political system in Switzerland – even though politics is ideally a sideline there, a kind of civic duty that as many Swiss people as possible should exercise at some point in their lives. That is why active lawyers, farmers, entrepreneurs and bankers sit in the Bern Parliament building; It’s called a militia system. Journalists like Köppel are rarer, but definitely possible.
Nevertheless, Köppel’s time in Parliament was anything but trouble-free. Probably the clearest sign that he wasn’t trying very hard to distinguish between his two functions was the case with the watch raid: last year, Köppel was suspected of violating official secrets because he shared confidential information from the National Council’s Foreign Affairs Committee in his video format “World Week Daily” had made public, which was about a raid on a Swiss watch manufacturer in Moscow. Köppel defended that he had received the information elsewhere as a journalist. Ultimately, he was allowed to retain his immunity, and the National Council office did not even impose disciplinary measures – a victory for the busy political publicist.
SVP regrets Köppel’s departure
The SVP, which Köppel only joined in 2015, officially regrets the announcement of the resignation of its prominent member. “Parliament is losing a competent and uncomfortable voice,” said party president Marco Chiesa to the View. Köppel’s cantonal party also takes note of his decision “with regret” and praises him as a creative head in the SVP parliamentary group and “great election campaigner”.
In fact, Köppel can mobilize. He was elected to parliament in 2015 with the most votes ever received by a member of the National Council, and in 2019 he was only surpassed by party colleague Albert Rösti, who is now a member of the Swiss government. With his undisputed rhetorical talent, Köppel continues to fill banquet halls, and in parliament his party colleagues praise him for his speeches, in which he gets to the heart of political issues like few others.
But Köppel is also controversial in his party. Apart from a few appearances as an eloquent speaker, he hardly left any traces in Parliament. Only nine advances he submitted in almost eight years, none of his ideas were accepted. Above all, he encountered opposition with his attitude towards Russia: In the past year, no one from the SVP has made it so clear that he understands Putin as Köppel. Polls show that the SVP base has more understanding for Russia than any other party. But Köppel’s Moscow-friendly course, prominently placed in the world weekhave cost the party supporters, find several leading SVP politicians.
The question remains whether Köppel’s departure as a member of the National Council can remedy the situation. His statements are likely to continue to be understood as partisan. Because, as it says in the statement from the Zurich SVP: “As a liberal freethinker, Roger Köppel will remain in politics and also in the SVP.”