Paul Widmer was born in 1949. He studied history and philosophy at the University of Zurich and Köln. In 1977 he entered the diplomatic service of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs and carried out internships in Bern and New York: first with the general consular and then with the permanent observer mission at the United Nations.
In 1979 he returned to headquarters, where he was appointed as a diplomatic officer in the Political Affairs Division I. Between mid-1983 and mid-1984, he was seconded to the “Institute for East-West Security Studies” in New York and then acted as an embassy secretary in Washington. In 1989 he returned to Bern, where he was employed as head of the CSCE service in the Political Directorate. From 1992 to 1999 he was the chief of the Berlin branch office of the Swiss embassy in Germany. In 1999 Widmer became Swiss the ambassador to Croatia and in 2003 the Ambassador to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. From 2007 up to October 2011 he was the Ambassador and permanent representative of Switzerland to the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. Since October 2011 Widmer has been in charge of guarding Switzerland’s interests by the Holy See in Rome.
Widmer has written a number of historical and political books — for example, “Die Schweizer Gesandschaft in Berlin” (1997); “Schweizer Aussenpolitik und Diplomatioe” (2003);“Kroatien im Umbruch” (2004); Der Einfluss der Schweiz auf die amerikanische Verfassung von 1787, in Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Geschichte, (1988).