Balthasar Glättli has been a Green Party National Councillor from the Canton of Zurich since 2011. From December 2013 to June 2020, he was parliamentary group president and thus ex officio also a member of the executive committee of the Green Party of Switzerland. On 20 June 2020, he was elected President of GRÜNE Schweiz by the delegates of the Green Party. He also represents Green concerns in the National Council's State Policy Committee (SPK-N). In the National Council, he quickly made a name for himself as a «digital politician», for example with the first initiative for net neutrality, which is now anchored in the Telecommunications Act.

Glättli studied philosophy and German at the University of Zurich and then worked for seven years in the IT sector and as the managing director of the migration policy organisation «Solidarité sans frontières». For years he has also been involved at various levels of the «Mieterinnen- und Mieterverband».