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A very Swiss identity crisis
The country’s sense of self as a haven for the world’s money and a beacon of neutrality is being shaken
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The folding of Credit Suisse into its bigger rival UBS shocked many around the world and raised questions about the stability the Swiss system sells itself on.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Sam Jones
“No one becomes a murderer more easily than a fatherland,” wrote Friedrich Durrenmatt, Switzerland’s national playwright.
Earlier in March, the country killed one of its own. At a hastily convened press conference in the capital Bern on a Sunday evening, the government and regulators announced Credit Suisse’s 167-year run as one of the pillars of Swiss society was over. The huge bank, the locomotive of Switzerland’s industrial miracle, weakened by years of scandal, was to be folded into its bigger rival UBS.
