PRESS RELEASE

Swiss Alliance for Bank Separation
Prevails in First TV Debate

This release will appear in the upcoming issue of the EIR Strategic Alert Service, no. 43.

Oct. 20, 2013 (EIRNS)—In their first public television appearance on Oct. 18, the two authors of the Swiss parliamentary initiative for bank separation, Social Democratic (SP) Deputy Corrado Pardini, and Swiss Peoples Party (SVP) Vice President, Deputy Christoph Blocher, removed any doubts that this "unholy alliance," as the bank lobby calls it, is cracking. Contrary to the psywar campaign led by the financial daily Neue Zürcher Zeitung, the two leaders did not backtrack on their intention of going for a full, strict bank separation after the Glass-Steagall model.

Facing representatives of the opposition front Gabi Huber, leader of the FDP (Liberal Party) faction in the National Council lower house, and Pirmin Bischof, CVP member of the Ständerat (Senate), on the popular talk show "Arena," on SF1, both Blocher and Pardini stood by their two identical, but separate motions which call for separating "banks with proprietary trading" from "deposit and wealth management banks," and demonstrated their confidence that they will find an agreement on the second issue, capital ratio to unweighted risk.

Switzerland needs banks, Pardini said, but it needs banks that are useful for the community, which issue credit, take deposits, finance home mortgages, and manage wealth. Those banks should be separated from the other banks, which engage in financial trading, and the former should be protected, whereas the latter should not. If they go bust, they will not endanger the community.

Blocher promoted the same line, although putting the accent on putting an end to what he calls the "Americanization" of Swiss banking, meaning the enormous growth of financial trading, by the two large banks, UBS and Credit Suisse.

Both leaders rebuffed their opponents, who praised the "stability" of UBS and Credit Suisse, and insisted on the central issue: There is no other nation in the world where the assets of the two banks are five times the size of the country's GDP. This is a systemic risk and risks must be eliminated.