The EU sanctions against the Swiss stock exchange have come to nothing – quite the opposite in fact: the past month proved to be the strongest month of July for more than ten years.
It didn’t quite work out as the commission in Brussels had intended: the EU had cancelled the so-called equivalence status for the Swiss stock exchange with effect on July 1 in a bid to increase pressure on the Swiss government to implement to framework agreement. The move has backfired, it emerged today.
Trading volumes on the stock market operated by SIX rose by about 20 percent in July from June, a spokesman for SIX told «SRF» (report in German), the Swiss state-financed radio and television company. Normally, trading is substantially below the normal levels due to the holiday season. Now though, the past month was the strongest July since 2008.
Successful Move
The government has been successful with its emergency move in response to the EU’s sanction. The commission wanted to stop EU traders from buying and selling shares of Swiss companies in Zurich. But the Swiss countermove meant that such shares can only be traded in Switzerland.
SIX hopes that the EU eventually will relent and award the equivalence status to the Swiss exchange again. But given that the Swiss government and the EU are at loggerheads over some aspects of the bilateral pact, the government’s Plan B remains in place for the time being.
