Cher Monsieur Parmelin, Nationalrat du canton de Vaud und vor allem a candidate of the
SVP for a blocherkompatiblen and therefore köppelbeklatschten Bundesratssitz: Yesterday I heard you on the Swiss German Radiosendung «L’écho du temps» and I must gesteh that I nearly broke together. It was hilarious to hear you say «I can English understand but je préfère répondre en français pour être plus précis». Because your Ausführung confirmed our impression that you are not präzis in English at all since you only spoke five words and yet didn’t bring it fertig to say them in the proper order.
Yet you must not jammer or klagen. Your chances sont intact. Few Bundesräte know English well. Didier Burkhalter et Simonetta Sommaruga le parlent très bien, but Micheline Calmy-Rey can it only passable, Pascal Couchepin is a terrible Radebrecher and Ueli Maurer even worse. Adolf Ogi speaks it with enthusiasm because when he was young he saw the Beatles in England which left him with a positive Einstellung. Arnold Koller talks English fliessend, he dozierte several times at the University of Berkeley in California after all, but he speaks it with a krachend Akzent. Which at least makes him sound authentic when he talks about Swiss federalism to American students.
Vous voyez que vous n’avez rien à craindre, I write this in French so that you drauskomm. No Kandidat was not in the Bundesrat gewählt because he was so provincial that he couldn’t speak or understand the most international language in the world. Au contraire, being provinziell in our parliament has the big Vorteil that nobody feels threatened and no other party gets too eifersüchtig. After all, to become Bundesrat your wichtigste Eigenschaft ist to be compatible with everybody who also wants to be Bundesrat but nicht wird.
So I raise my glass in the tradition of your canton Vaudois and salute you and wünsch you viel Erfolg next week when it goes around everything.
(Tages-Anzeiger)
(Erstellt: 03.12.2015, 09:57 Uhr)