How Far Would a 209bn Defense Budget Take the Average European Nation?

Putting the sheer number of 209bn Swiss franks of government guarantees for the forced takeover of Credit Suisse by UBS into the perspective of selected defense budgets

Photo by Mariia Shalabaieva on Unsplash

209 billion Swiss francs. That’s how much the Swiss government pledged in guarantees for the forced takeover of Credit Suisse by UBS. According to some news outlets, it might even be up to 259 billion Swiss francs.

This decision was made over one weekend.

Change of universe. Welcome to the parallel universe of defense budget planning. After thirty years of shrinking budgets, European defense budgets started rising again in 2022 — albeit only after the start of a full-scale war in Europe.

This article is not about bank bashing, or about the political implications of the forced takeover of Credit Suisse and the risks of creating a mega-bank.

This article is about putting the sheer number of 209 billion Swiss francs into perspective with another important sector of public life: defense.

Switzerland’s current defense budget for the 2021–2024 period is 21.7 billion Swiss francs. On average, that’s around 5.4 billion Swiss franks…