The Swiss people don’t need help from the government to deal with inflation, says the finance minister.
Zurich (Reuters) – Swiss Finance Minister Ueli Maurer said that the government wouldn’t help people who were hurt by high energy prices. He also said that budget cuts might be needed because the government wouldn’t raise taxes to prepare for the economic storm that was coming.
In an interview that came out Wednesday in the Tages-Anzeiger, he said, “Petrol prices are not too high in Switzerland, which is rich.”
Maurer, a fiscal hawk from the right-wing Swiss People’s Party, said that a recession was coming, but that its severity would depend on how long the war in Ukraine lasted and how much energy cost.
He said that Swiss banks shouldn’t give in to pressure to make it harder for the West to punish Russians for invading Ukraine by putting more sanctions on them.
If anything, we should tell them to slow down and not do a “Swiss finish” with the sanctions. Our banks probably have the strictest rules of anyone, “he was said to have said.”
He said that Switzerland could help meet its energy needs by using gas-fired power plants and extending the life of its nuclear power plants. He also said that Switzerland would help pay for the gas terminals that its neighbor, Germany, was building.
