BERNE (Reuters) – Swiss parliamentarians will debate on Tuesday the conditions for the rescue of Credit Suisse, which is the subject of strong criticism in the country, and will have the opportunity to symbolically express their opinion on the aid granted by the State.
It is only the third time in 20 years that the National Council, the lower house of the Swiss Federal Assembly, has been summoned to Bern for an extraordinary session followed by a vote.
Many elected officials have criticized the conditions for the takeover of Credit Suisse by its rival UBS for three billion Swiss francs (3.04 billion euros), an operation accompanied by liquidity guarantees of 250 billion francs granted by the State.
Their vote will, however, be symbolic because they cannot question funds that have already been promised by the Confederation, even if the government has only asked the opinion of a subgroup of six parliamentarians beforehand.
“Political leaders must have their say when the state urgently releases such sums,” Céline Widmer, an elected Socialist Party member of the National Council, told Reuters.
“We feel that there is a lot of anger and frustration among the Swiss population,” added Roland Fischer, his counterpart from the Vert’libéral group. “In theory, we could reject (the aid plan) but that would not hold legally.
(Report by Noele Illien and John Revill, Tangi Salaün, edited by Blandine Hénault)
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