Biography

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Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf is a former member of the Swiss Federal Council and the former President of Switzerland for 2012. She is the sixth woman to be elected to the Swiss Federal Council.

Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf was born in 1956 and after legal studies in Zurich in 1981, she returned to her native Canton of Graubünden where she was admitted to the bar, practicing as a lawyer and notary public. She obtained a doctorate from the University of Zurich in 1990. She worked as a self-employed lawyer and notary public from 1987–1998.

Widmer-Schlumpf began her political career when she was elected to the district court of Trin in 1985. As a member of the Graubünden Cantonal Parliament from 1994 to 1998, she worked on several committees. On March 15, 1998, she was elected to the cantonal government. She headed the Cantonal Finance and Communes Department from January 1999 to December 2007. During this time, she was twice elected as president of the Graubünden Cantonal Council (in 2001 and 2005). She assumed office as head of the Federal Department of Justice and Police (FDJP) on January 1, 2008. She was the head of the Federal Department of Finance from 2010 to 2015, a position she held through both her presidency (2012) and vice presidency (2011).