The Federal Council [ 2 ] is the federal cabinet of the Swiss Confederation. Its seven members also serve as the collective head of state and government of Switzerland. Since after World War II, the Federal Council is by convention a permanent grand coalition government composed of representatives of the country's major parties and language regions.
While the entire Federal Council is responsible for leading the federal administration of Switzerland , each Councillor heads one of the seven federal executive departments. The President of the Swiss Confederation chairs the council, but exercises no particular authority; rather, the position is one of a first among equals and rotates among the seven Councillors annually.
The Federal Council is elected as a body by the members of the Federal Assembly of Switzerland for a term of four years after each federal parliamentary election , without the possibility of recall or a vote of no confidence. Incumbents are not term-limited and are by convention almost always re-elected; most serve around 8 to 12 years in office. As of , [update] the members of the Federal Council are, in order of seniority:.
The Federal Council was instituted by the Federal Constitution as the "supreme executive and directorial authority of the Confederation". When the Constitution was written, constitutional democracy was still in its infancy, and the founding fathers of Switzerland had little in the way of examples.
While they drew heavily on the United States Constitution for the organisation of the federal state as a whole, they opted for the collegial rather than the presidential system for the executive branch of government directorial system. This accommodated the long tradition of the rule of collective bodies in Switzerland. Today, only three other states, Bosnia and Herzegovina , Andorra and San Marino , have collective rather than unitary heads of state.
