2023-08-20 07:26:50
Arthur Rutishauser, editor-in-chief of the Sunday newspaper.
In 2019 everything was clear. After the great success of the women’s demonstration and the hot summer, there were only two topics: women and climate change. This had consequences, there was a wave of protests that brought more women and Greens into parliament than ever before. This time the starting position is not so clear. All parties are now green, just as they all have more women than before.
Before the elections on October 22, two parties, the SVP and the FDP, prefer not to talk about what was the most important event in Switzerland: the collapse of Credit Suisse. The FDP fears clan liability because it is traditionally considered a banking party. The SVP avoids the topic because Ueli Maurer has been the finance minister for years.
But silence will not help. Although the really big crisis was prevented with the forced takeover of CS, UBS will announce at the end of the month how many CS bankers will be put on the street. There will be thousands. In certain teams not a single CS employee is taken on by UBS, in other places UBS employees are also put on the leaver list.
This raises the question of Maurer’s political responsibility, but the former finance minister refuses to comment. Since he resigned at the end of 2022, he has been very fond of SVP party politics and railed against immigration, but when it comes to the CS debacle, he hides. Apart from a flippant remark that he would have wanted to do everything better, but they just didn’t let him, nothing was heard from him.
Maurer was able to inform the entire Federal Council about the dangerous situation of CS in the autumn.
Maurer apparently “doesn’t want” to be measured by what he left behind in the Treasury after seven years. One is the federal finances, they are not balanced. But that’s because of Corona and the bloated military budget because of the Ukraine war. As Minister of Finance, he was also the supreme guarantor of the Swiss financial center. And then a debacle occurred under his aegis that was entirely his own fault. The fact that CS was doing badly was not due to a financial crisis or the negative interest rates that everyone complained about. All other large Swiss banks have made high profits in recent years. First and foremost the Raiffeisen and cantonal banks, but also UBS. The only prominent exception: the CS.
Now Maurer was not directly responsible for the banks, these were the Financial Market Authority and the National Bank. But firstly he was largely responsible for filling the respective top jobs, and secondly he sat on all the important committees, namely the steering committee for financial crises, where he was informed directly about banking issues. In fact, he was able to inform the entire Federal Council about the dangerous situation of the big bank as early as autumn. Deciding when to inform colleagues was his personal privilege. This is what the corresponding regulation, which he signed on December 2, 2019, wants.
As is now known, Maurer, fully aware of the critical situation at Credit Suisse, failed to set up a rescue package in good time. The result was what nobody wanted, namely that Switzerland became dependent on a single big bank. On November 2, the first and only time he briefed the entire Federal Council, a rescue plan was in place that was essentially identical to the one used on March 19. With one crucial difference: back then, the CS could still have been saved. In mid-March, when tens of billions were flowing out of the bank every day, that was no longer possible. Ueli Maurer bears the main political responsibility for the fact that it came to this and that emergency law was needed again. As the minister responsible, he overslept the timely rescue. “Don’t feel like it”, this motto is now taking revenge.
Found a bug? Report now.
1692563788
#Editorial #election #campaign #Dont #feel #revenge
– “Don’t feel like it”, that’s taking revenge now
Neither the FDP nor the SVP want to talk about the demise of Credit Suisse. Above all, the SVP knows why – because politically responsible for the debacle is Ueli Maurer.