Alexander Schallenberg

Alexander Georg Nicolas Schallenberg (Austrian German: [ˌalɛˈksandɐ ˈɡeːɔrɡ ˈnɪkolas ˈʃaln̩bɛrɡ]; born 20 June 1969) is an Austrian diplomat, jurist, and politician who served as the minister of foreign affairs from 2019 until 2025, briefly interrupted by a period from October until December 2021, when he served as 27th chancellor of Austria, a role he served in an acting capacity again from January to March 2025.

A member of the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP), he held the position in the Bierlein government and Second Kurz government, before briefly serving as chancellor as Kurz's successor from 11 October to 6 December 2021 (Schallenberg government). On 10 January 2025, Schallenberg was appointed acting chancellor by President Alexander Van der Bellen, following the resignation of Karl Nehammer, who himself had served in an Caretaking capacity since October 2024 following the legislative elections the previous month.

A member of the Schallenberg family and a graduate of the College of Europe, Schallenberg was a career diplomat who became a mentor to Kurz when the latter became foreign minister. Kurz appointed him director of strategic foreign policy planning and head of the European department. Schallenberg joined the cabinet as foreign minister in 2019. After Kurz announced his pending resignation on 9 October 2021, Schallenberg was proposed by the ÖVP to replace him as Chancellor of Austria. He was sworn in on 11 October 2021. Schallenberg announced his pending resignation on 2 December 2021, after less than two months in office. His resignation took effect on 6 December; he returned to the position of foreign minister.

A member of the comital branch of the Austro-Hungarian Schallenberg family, Schallenberg was born in 1969 in Bern, Switzerland, where his father Wolfgang was Austrian ambassador to Switzerland. His mother is a native of Switzerland, and the daughter of Swiss banker and president of UBS Alfred Schaefer. Schallenberg was raised in India, Spain and France where his father served as ambassador; his father eventually became Secretary-General of the Foreign Ministry. Schallenberg speaks German, French, English and Spanish fluently, and has basic knowledge of Russian. The Genealogisches Handbuch des Adels lists his given names as Alexander Georg Nicolas Christoph Wolfgang Tassilo, though Schallenberg has disputed this and listed Alexander Georg Nicolas as his given names.

His paternal grandfather, Herbert, Count of Schallenberg (1901–1974), was Austrian consul general in Prague, while his paternal grandmother was the daughter of politician Walter Koch, the Saxon and later German ambassador in Prague. He is a 2nd great-grandson of Austro-Hungarian general Karl Kostersitz von Marenhorst. Schallenberg has mainly Swiss ancestry on his mother's side and Austrian, Bohemian, Moravian, Hungarian and Saxon ancestry on his father's side. Alexander Schallenberg's traditional title is Count, the hereditary title his family was conferred in 1666 within the Habsburg Hereditary Lands. He is the first chancellor since Kurt Schuschnigg and Prince Starhemberg to belong to a noble family.

Schallenberg married French–Belgian European civil servant and fellow graduate of the College of Europe Marie-Isabelle Hénin (born 1969 in Uccle) in Saint-Pierre, France in 1995. She is the daughter of Erik Hénin and noted equestrian and 1960s Parisian socialite Isabelle Le Maresquier, and a granddaughter of the prominent French architect Noël Le Maresquier and Spanish noblewoman Conchita López de Tejada; Isabelle Le Maresquier was a niece of French prime minister Michel Debré. Her family was discussed as an example of French "state nobility" by Pierre Bourdieu.

Alexander and Marie-Isabelle Schallenberg have four children; they later divorced.

From 1989 to 1994, he studied law at the University of Vienna and the University of Paris II Panthéon-Assas. From 1995 to 1996 he earned an LL.M. in European law at the College of Europe in Bruges, Belgium, an institution that aims "to train an elite of young executives for Europe" and whose graduates are said to form a close-knit "Bruges Mafia." Schallenberg was a graduate of the "Walter Hallstein promotion."