(Bern) Swiss parliamentarians protested on Tuesday at having seen “ the red carpet of state aid ” rolled out once again to save a bank badly managed by greedy leaders, during an extraordinary session devoted to the hasty takeover of Credit Suisse by its competitor and compatriot UBS.

In front of the elected officials meeting in extraordinary session for three days, the President of the Swiss Confederation, Alain Berset, came to defend the plan drawn up in an emergency on the weekend of March 18 and 19 to avoid a bankruptcy of Credit Suisse, without asking their opinion neither to parliamentarians nor to shareholders.

“ Time was running out ” and the Federal Council (Swiss government) sought “ the best possible solution to avoid a financial crisis with incalculable consequences ” for the financial centre, Switzerland as a whole and the rest of the world, he said. he asserted before the Upper House.

But lawmakers have taken turns criticizing the chosen solution, which radically alters the economic landscape of the wealthy Alpine country, much of whose prestige and appeal rests on a stable, healthy and trusted banking sector.

The takeover, in the words of the president, “shaken Switzerland” where there are concerns about the consequences for employment of this merger because of the many duplicate positions, but also the influence that will have the new financial juggernaut on the country’s economy.

Hansjörg Knecht, entrepreneur and elected representative of the Center Democratic Union (radical right), did not fail to recall that family businesses and SMEs must assume the risks they take and their leaders pay the price by case of difficulties.

On the contrary, the two banks see themselves “rolling out the red carpet of state aid”, protested this elected representative of the country’s first political formation. His party is calling for tougher rules on too-big-to-fail institutions and calling for unwarranted bonuses to be refunded.

On the left, the elected socialist Carlo Sommaruga castigated the “ derisory ” price paid by UBS for the acquisition of Credit Suisse, being indignant at “ the privatization of profits and the nationalization of losses ” at the expense of taxpayers.

UBS is to buy Credit Suisse, one of the world’s 30 banks considered too big to fail, for just 3 billion Swiss francs (an equivalent sum in euros) with strong guarantees.

These reach 109 billion francs between the liquidity granted by the Swiss central bank and the guarantees of the Confederation.

At the end of the day, the elected officials voted in favor of the guarantees, but with bad grace. They are all the more outraged since the state had already had to come to the rescue of UBS in 2008.

“Apparently, the financial crisis of 2008 was not enough to eliminate this type of banker embodied by Leonardo di Caprio in “The Wolf of Wall Street” and whom we saw sink with delight,” lamented the socialist parliamentarian Eva Herzog.

During his speech, the President of the Confederation nevertheless insisted on the fact that, “ without intervention ”, Credit Suisse “ would have found itself, in all likelihood, in default on March 20 or 21 ”.

The bank was already weakened by numerous scandals, but a movement of panic took hold of the markets on March 15 in the wake of the bankruptcy of the American bank SVB.

Some parliamentarians therefore said they understood that the government could not give parliamentarians time to meet earlier.

” It’s frustrating. But when the roof burns, we bring the firefighters, we don’t meet to find out whether to buy a fire truck,” said Damien Cottier, leader of the Liberal-Radical Party (liberal right), questioned by the AFP.

During this session, the elected representatives of the two chambers will also discuss a “ possible legal action against the governing bodies of Credit Suisse ”.

“ The leaders at the origin of these shortcomings must answer for their actions ”, summarized for AFP Céline Vara, elected to the upper house for the Greens.

The government has taken the lead to calm the anger by depriving the most senior leaders of Credit Suisse of their bonuses and bonuses for the years 2022 and 2023.