Ulrich ‘Ueli’ Maurer, one of seven members of Swiss Federal Council, holds the executive authority of the country. Presidency of this council is periodically assigned to its members. This position is mostly symbolic and ceremonial, but to be the president of this council comes with an important role. When the council members are divided on an issue and consensus cannot be achieved, the president’s vote can change the outcome in favor of a certain party. On December 5, with 201 ayes out of 209 votes, Mr. Maurer was chosen by Swiss parliament as the president of this council in 2019.
According to Swissinfo, this 68-year-old accountant was given this honor because of his policies as the head of the Swiss Federal Department of Finance to manage the public budget. Also, Maurer has previously shown that he understands the changes in the financial sector and the need to use Blockchain technology and cryptocurrency.
In recent years, Switzerland has gradually turned into one of the crypto-friendly countries in Europe and the world. Last month, the Swiss government announced in a report that the Distributed Ledger technology is a strategy for developing the finance sector. As it was mentioned in this report, deploying necessary legal infrastructure to develop this technology has been planned in Swiss. Legalizing this technology in Swiss faces with two challenges; first, cryptocurrencies are unbacked compared to physical assets like gold. Second, it sets the scene for scamming. Yet, this report was met with enthusiasm especially from crypto valley companies in Zug. Swiss hopes to attract many newly-founded companies and investors via its new policies.
One other Switzerland mission is to integrate cryptocurrency technology with a current financial system of the country. At this time, the conventional financial system of this country does not show enthusiasm in providing banking and financial services to companies working in this area, and this has led to some problems in a way that some crypto valley companies in Zug have been threatened to leave the country, especially when other countries in Europe have provisioned the condition for such companies. One of the people who recently warned about this issue and has stepped in to solve it is Mr. Maurer. His meetings with custodian institutions in the Swiss financial sector has led to the development of instructions for those active in the cryptocurrency market of the country.
Mr. Maurer also participated in the recent G20 summit in Buenos Aires and talked about the high potential of this technology in the financial sector. In this summit, he also said that laws against money laundering and providing funds for terrorism must be fully enforced in the field of cryptocurrencies and that maintaining the integrity of financial market should be assured and guaranteed.
The presence of Maurer as a pro-crypto and Blockchain politician with the high vote of confidence in the Swiss Federal Council has spurred hope among many companies and investors in this country in 2019 and has received a wide positive response.
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