No to a Switzerland with 10 million!
Dominic Carman
There was relief that Swiss voters rejected a proposed population cap, but the relatively narrow victory suggests there might be further trouble ahead.
Is Switzerland overcrowded? That is the critical question which Swiss citizens recently had to decide when voting on a proposed Sustainability Initiative to cap the country’s population at 10 million. According to census data, Switzerland has 226 people per km² making it quite similar in population density to two of its immediate neighbours: Germany (243 per km²) is slightly higher while Italy (199 per km²) is slightly lower. But for the populist Swiss People’s Party (SVP), which has been the largest parliamentary party since 1999 and currently holds 62 out of 200 seats on the Swiss National Council, such density is too high.
Thomas Matter, a prominent banker and SVP politician, summarised his party’s position: “We are not against immigration, but it has to be moderate and controlled so we bring in the right people. Before we had qualitative immigration, now we have quantitative immigration. Switzerland is still the same size as it was in 1848, and more and more people are living in the same space.”
No other country has ever tried to implement a hard limit on the number of residents. But on 14th June, a referendum was held enabling Swiss citizens to vote on the radical proposal – No to a Switzerland with 10 million! (Sustainability Initiative) – which would cap the permanent resident population until 2050. Under the Swiss system of direct democracy, popular initiatives are put to a referendum if they get 100,000 backers within 18 months. “Switzerland is the only country that regularly asks its citizens to vote,” explains Frank Gerhard, corporate partner at Homburger.
Today, the Swiss population stands at 9.1 million – up from 7.3 million when free movement of people between Switzerland and the EU first came into effect in June 2002. Notably, 27% of Swiss residents were born abroad making them ineligible to vote. Under the country’s stringent naturalization laws, obtaining citizenship is a lengthy and difficult process. According to official projections, the 10 million threshold will be passed by the early 2040s. Once the figure reaches 9.5 million, the SVP-led proposal required the government to take measures such as limiting the number of residency permits and refugees who are granted asylum.
