The Swiss Intelligence Service is said to be in chaos

The Federal Intelligence Service is very busy with its own transformation. So much so that important deadlines cannot be met.

Henry Habegger / ch media

Defense Minister Viola Amherd did not have a reform of the Swiss Intelligence Service (SRC) in mind when she proposed in 2021 to the Federal Council the successor of Jean-Philippe Gaudin, who had fallen from grace. She would rather have thought about occasional improvements.

But the new head of the secret service and former diplomat Christian Dussey, in office since April 2022, would have developed an unsuspected thirst for creation and created a new structure of the service. A new organizational chart, new areas of activity for management, in short: a new secret service.

This project was approved by Amherd and its general secretary at the time, who considered it satisfactory.

This is how the genesis of the ongoing transformation of the SRC is told in certain well-informed circles in Bern. In March 2024, the members of the new management officially took office.

Money was not enough for all positions

But clearly, the transformation of the Federal Intelligence Service (SRC) is not going as hoped. Although the positions in the new organization chart were gradually filled, the financial means did not follow to cover all salaries and carry out the planned projects.

According to sources, this situation is explained, among other things, by the creation of special positions for several former senior executives, who occupy the same salary level, but without management responsibilities. For example, the former head of intelligence information management, responsible for the ISIS state protection database, linked to the second file case, in 2010. At the time, 180,000 files of people had been deemed illegitimate or irrelevant and deleted.

The former head of situation assessment and control, formerly vice director, will also be retained in a special position. The new staff also includes a former headhunter who had been involved in Dussey’s recruitment and whom the latter had subsequently appointed vice-director of the SRC.

One of the results of this upheaval is dissatisfaction among staff, but also criticism, for example from the cantons, that service performance has significantly declined.

According to observers, the performance of the service has become weak. The “weekly situation”, classified confidential and sent to numerous departments of the Confederation and the cantons, “practically never contains information that has not already been published in the newspapers”.

2024 situation report not yet published

The annual situation report of the intelligence service is clearly also a victim of this situation. This report, entitled Security of Switzerlandis usually published and presented in June; sometimes even in spring. The situation report Security Switzerland 2023 was published on June 26, 2023, the 2022 edition on June 27, 2022. The 2021 edition was published on June 10, 2021.

The report, around a hundred pages long, describes the evolution of the international security situation and the main threats weighing on Switzerland. It is an important basic work for politics, authorities and the public. But so far, everyone is waiting in vain for the 2024 edition. But then, why is it not yet available? Is this delay linked to internal problems? A question asked by CH Media (to which Watson belongs) to which the SRC answers that:

The revision of the law on the SRC, which was initially to be the subject of parliamentary debates again this year, is also underway with at least a year of delay. The consultation already took place in 2022, but not much has happened since. As the Federal Council indicated on Friday, the project will also be divided into two parts. The law must in particular give the secret services significant new skills to monitor violent and extremist actions.

Amherd sends its fire extinguisher

The intelligence service is in difficulty. The head of DDPS Viola Amherd recently made a coach available to the director. Its deputy secretary general Marc Siegenthaler must “accompany the transformation of the SRC and support it with resources”. This is how the NZZ quoted the SRC press service in August. His critics say Siegenthaler, a former human resources manager, has no intelligence experience.

When the general secretariat of a department intervenes in a federal office, it means that there is fire in the lake. Thus, at the beginning of September, UDC federal councilor Guy Parmelin placed his interim secretary general at the head of the Federal Office for the Economic Supply of the Country (OFAE). The head of the OFAE, Hans Häfliger, and his deputy are leaving their positions at the end of the year.

In this context, a rumor is spreading that the SRC has also increased the salaries of new members of the management of a salary class as part of the transformation. However, this cannot be confirmed, quite the contrary. According to the SRC press service, the functions of the management have been reassessed. They are now distributed in salary classes 29 to 32. This corresponds to maximum annual salaries, without allowances, currently ranging from 200,000 to 234,000 francs.

Before the transformation, the members of the management were in classes 29 to 33 (maximum: 253,000 francs). The director remained unchanged in salary class 36 (314,000 francs). The question of which classes the members of the management actually find themselves in today however, remains unanswered.

It is said of Director Dussey himself that he would like to become ambassador to the United States. Before being appointed head of the SRC, he briefly served as ambassador to Iran.

Of course, this is not the first time that the situation report has been published in October. In 2020, the year of the pandemic, it was on the 27th. Only, on March 16, 2020, the Federal Council declared the “extraordinary situation”, the country was upside down. In her foreword to the 2020 situation report, Federal Councilor Viola Amherd said:

Unlike 2020, the “extraordinary situation” this time concerns the SRC itself.

(Translated and adapted by Chiara Lecca)