National banks become political issue

The currency affair involving the head of the Swiss National Bank Philipp Hildebrand developed this week into a discussion about the political role played by the bank. Similar debates are unfolding in other countries where right-wing politicians are seeking to politicise the central banks, the left-leaning weekly paper WOZ points out: "Last week the nationalist Viktor Orbán brought the Hungarian National Bank under his control. And on Tuesday the libertarian Ron Paul achieved the third-best result in the US Republican presidential primaries in Iowa. Orbán and Paul show how the state could look if the right-wing grows even stronger during the crisis. For both the central bank is a focus of attack. ... In the Hildebrand case, too - which is above all a personal affair - focus is on playing up the political role of the National Bank. ... The future economic order is now being negotiated in terms of the role of the central banks."

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