COMMENT The Obama administration will face on Monday what many may regard as a first test for the new “partnership” it is seeking to promote in foreign policy. When Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf, the Swiss federal councillor in charge of police and justice, meets Eric Holder, US attorney-general, the final item for discussion – according to her ministry’s press release – will be US demands for data on American holders of accounts at UBS, the Swiss bank.
This issue, a tiny coda to stories about troubled banks in the US, has been the lead story in Swiss newspapers and on Swiss television for days – with no sign of cessation. Both UBS’s leadership and Finma, the Swiss bank and insurance regulator that sanctioned a release of some customer data to the US justice department, have been pilloried – from across the Swiss political spectrum – for compromising banking secrecy and sovereignty.
