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Name: Fritsche, Claudia
Current Position: Ambassador
Liechtenstein is one of the smallest independent countries in the world. With a population of barely 36,000, the choice of possible diplomats is a bit thin, so it is not surprising that the nation’s ambassador to the United States, Claudia Fritsche, has been around for a long time…since 2000. Fritsche was her nation’s first ambassador to the United Nations and to the U.S.
Born on July 26, 1952, Fritsche began her career as the personal secretary of Prime Minister Alfred Hilbe, serving in that capacity from 1970 until 1974.
In 1978, she entered the diplomatic service in the Office of Foreign Affairs and served in a variety of functions, such as inter alia secretary to the Liechtenstein parliamentary delegations to the Council of Europe and the European Free Trade Association.
From February 1983 until May 1990, she was deputy to the permanent representative of Liechtenstein to the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. She represented the Liechtenstein government on the European Committee on Equality between Women and Men from April 1987 until August 1990, while also chairing the Liechtenstein National Committee on Equality between Women and Men. She served as first secretary and chargé d’affairs ad interim at Lichtenstein’s embassy in Bern, Switzerland, in 1987. The following year, Fritsche was a member of the Liechtenstein organizing committee for the Council of Europe’s North-South campaign.
Beginning in September 1989, she served simultaneously as first secretary and chargé d’affaires at the Liechtenstein embassy in Vienna, Austria. Fritsche also represented her government in the EFTA/EC Working Group on “Flanking Policies” from 1989-1990.
Fritsche was appointed in September 1990 as Liechtenstein’s representative to the United Nations, a post she held until 2002. While at the UN she served as vice president and member of the General Committee of the UN General Assembly during its 48th session. From June 1999 to September 2002, she served as president of the International Association of Permanent Representatives to the United Nations.
In December 2000, she was simultaneously appointed as Liechtenstein’s non-resident ambassador to Washington, DC. In October 2002, she opened her nation’s first embassy in Washington D.C. Three years later, she helped launched an annual poetry reading by the ambassadors of small nations.
Firtsche’s husband, Manfred, is a native of Austria who runs a business exporting lamb and venison. They met at a dance in Lichtenstein in 1970 and married ten years later.
Claudia Fritsche’s CV (Embassy of Liechtenstein)
Liechtenstein’s Manfred Fritsche Understands What It Takes to Work Together (by Gail Scott, Washington Diplomat)