Proposed Popular Initiative Demands Partial Nationalization of UBS
Published: Sunday, Sep 17th 2023, 07:40
Updated At: Friday, Oct 13th 2023, 14:12
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A citizens' committee from the canton of Zurich is planning a national popular initiative to partially nationalise the large bank UBS. The initiative text has been submitted to the Federal Chancellery for pre-examination and the committee is demanding that the federal government take over the majority of the bank's shares. The initiative committee wants to protect taxpayers and state assets better, as a lesson from the banking crises of 2008 around UBS and 2023 with the takeover of Credit Suisse by UBS, and to strengthen the trust of customers and investors. The current UBS has become "de facto a state bank in two ways", according to the initiators. The UBS was only able to take over Credit Suisse thanks to state guarantees in the billions. In addition, the UBS is now too big to be allowed to fail in a crisis. The initiator is Bernhard Schmidt from Dietikon ZH. The 58-year-old independent candidate is the head of a private school and brought the Stop Limmattalbahn Initiative to the vote in the canton of Zurich with just under 8000 signatures, which was rejected by the people in 2018. Schmidt also unsuccessfully ran for the Zurich government council. In October he will be running with his own list for the National Council elections and is applying for a seat in the Council of States. According to the initiators' website, the so-called banking initiative specifically wants to change Article 98 of the Federal Constitution on banks and insurance companies: "Large banks of system-relevant dimension are to be managed as mixed-economy joint-stock companies, with the federal government being the majority shareholder in terms of share capital. The bank can issue participation certificates". A period of two years is provided for the implementation of the partial nationalisation after the initiative is accepted. According to the planned initiative text, the Federal Assembly must ensure through "precautionary measures" that large banks cannot relocate their legal seat abroad after the initiative is accepted. Schmidt wants to start collecting signatures this year. 100,000 signatures are needed within 18 months for an initiative to come into effect.nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn
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