Ueli Maurer on CS and Covid: “Is the state responsible for everything?”

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Former federal councilor Ueli Maurer (73) has defended his decision not to intervene in Credit Suisse (CS) at the end of 2022. A state rescue was not very realistic, he said. He also questioned the role of the state with regard to the Corona measures.

A bankruptcy of CS was very unlikely, Maurer said in an interview with the “SonntagsZeitung” published on Sunday. “The bank had so much equity that it was clear that there was interest from third parties,” said the former SVP federal councilor. This also happened with the takeover by UBS. For Maurer, this is ultimately the best possible option.

In such a scenario, the Federal Council will in principle only take action at the last minute, the former Minister of Finance emphasizes. “He does not have the necessary information.” Responsibility lies first with management, then with the board of directors, the accounting firm and the financial markets regulator Finma. “In the end, the National Bank may have also acted – not everyone has acted in this case,” he said.

“Fatal signal”

According to his statements, a state rescue of CS would have meant a very large loan worth billions. The bank’s management did not want this at all, because they said they would solve the problem themselves. That would have caused an uproar among the public, but it would have done little for the bank.

Maurer described as naive the idea that the Federal Council could have nationalized a globally active bank using the emergency law – against the wishes of management. State intervention would send a “fatal signal”. For banks it would mean that they could easily take large risks.

“The state controls everything”

The CS is about the same question as the corona pandemic, according to Maurer: “Is the state responsible for everything?” According to him, the pandemic is reinforcing a trend: “The state takes care of everything, really everything.”

In the interview, Mauer also repeated statements he had made about the measures during the corona pandemic. “What worries me most is how the entire society can be put into such a hypnosis and manipulated,” said the former SVP federal councilor. By hypnosis he means that people were depicted as ‘irresponsible lunatics’ who, for example, criticized the closure of schools.

“We have to bring people back, otherwise they will become extremists”

The events of the pandemic were grist to the mill of those who had lost confidence in the state. “We have to get these people back, otherwise they will become extremists,” Maurer said. The state has not admitted that it went too far in the exclusion. For Maurer, that would be the least that should be done.

Maurer criticizes the fact that the Federal Council has not put on the brakes. “Money was spent until it was no longer possible. A billion here, two or three billion there – money was no longer an issue.” In some cases it was no longer even discussed in the Federal Council. (SDA/neo)

Source:Blick