Switzerland is set to hold a new referendum to restrict its population to 10 million until 2050 to restrict mass migration.
The move comes after the populist Swiss People’s Party (UDC) gained 114,600 signatures in under a year, meeting a government requirement for 100,000 signatures within 18 months for the
referendum to proceed.
If approved, the referendum will ensure Switzerland maintains “sustainable demographic development” by capping the permanent resident population at 10 million for the next 25 years.
Remix News reported:
“Under the proposal, the Swiss government would have to take urgent measures as soon as the permanent resident population exceeds 9.5 million by, for example, suspending the ability for migrants to obtain residence permits, Swiss citizenship, or any other right to stay in the country.”
A petition to restrict immigration by any means necessary garnered the 100,000 signatures required to force the government to hold a referendum. https://t.co/GAafOMLbAZ
— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) April 5, 2024
As a result of the vote, Switzerland would likely be forced to end its bilateral Agreement with the European Union on free movement and withdraw from the U.N. Global Compact for Migration.
UDC leader Marco Chiesa said the referendum would guarantee “the safety, services, and well-being of all of us.”
He added that it would also serve “to preserve our values: independence, direct democracy, sovereignty, and freedom.”
D.C. National Councilor and Group Chairman Thomas Aeschi said:
“Since 2023, for the first time, more than 9 million people have been living in our country.”
“Last year, an additional 98,851 people immigrated to our country. Added to this are more than 30,000 asylum seekers.”
According to the party:
Switzerland has suffered “housing shortages and rising rents, traffic jams on the roads, crowded trains and buses, falling standards of schools, increasing violence and crime, electricity shortages, income stagnating per capita, ever-higher health insurance premiums, indebted social services, and increased pressure on the beauty of the landscape and the preservation of nature.”
Previously, the UDC warned the country was being ruined by mass migration, with new arrivals from Africa swallowing up welfare rates of 34 percent.
Moreover, two-thirds of prison inmates in Switzerland are foreign nationals, with Algerians taking up the majority.
Swissinfo reported:
“According to the initiative, the population of permanent residents must not exceed ten million people before 2050. The government should then set a limit based on the birth rate. If 9.5 million people live in the country before 2050, the Federal Council and Parliament would have to act.
For example, temporarily admitted persons would then no longer be able to obtain a permanent residence permit.
Family reunification is also to be restricted. International agreements with exemption or protection clauses would have to be renegotiated.
If all this is not enough, the Agreement on the Free Movement of Persons with the European Union would have to be canceled.”
According to a party statement today, the high level of support for this initiative “shows that the population urgently demands sustainable and independently controlled immigration for Switzerland.”
READ: EU Passes Migration Pact to Flood Europe with 75 Million New Migrants
