State Secretary for Security Policy to meet with Singapore’s Permanent Secretary (Defence)
Bern, 21.10.2025 — Markus Mäder, State Secretary for Security Policy, will receive Singapore’s Permanent Secretary (Defence) Chan Heng Kee in Bern on 21 October 2025. They will discuss current security policy developments and challenges and visit the National Emergency Operations Centre.
Talks will focus on topics such as comprehensive defence and the conscription system as well as state resilience, strategic crisis prevention and crisis management. The Permanent Secretary (Defence) and the State Secretary will also discuss the future of compulsory military service and future challenges in a changing international environment.
Chan Heng Kee has been Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Defence since 2019 overseeing the Ministry’s strategic policy, administration, and international defence engagements. He is the most senior civil servant in the ministry's policy wing and leads inter-agency coordination on national security and whole-of-government resilience in the Southeast Asian island and city-state.
The visit will also include meetings with Urs Loher, National Armaments Director, Michaela Schärer, Director of the Federal Office for Civil Protection (FOCP), Gabriel Lüchinger, Head of International Security at the FDFA, and a joint tour of the National Emergency Operations Centre (NEOC). The NEOC is part of the FOCP and serves as the federal government's central point of contact in the event of major incidents in the area of civil protection.