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Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M
- amtamt 4mo agoThis seems a much more rational approach than pure political agenda driven fear mongering campaigns against immigrants.
- amunozo 4mo agoWhat's rational in the arbitrary number of 10 millions for no reason at allM
- naths88 4mo agoIt is completely irrational. But the UDC knows it, pure manipulation of the masses.
- herbst 4mo agoIt's not completely irrational. It's a fixed placative number yes. But reality is also we don't produce more food than we already do. More people means more import and it's actually lowering the quality of the available food, making shopping more complicated, etc. And that's just the food quality aspect, what about pensions? Health care? ...
- foldr 4mo ago>what about pensions? Health care? What about health care if there's no more 'room' for the immigrants who make up a substantial fraction of health workers in Switzerland?
- logancbrown 4mo agoSwiss people are perfectly capable of becoming health workers? What kind of argument is this?
- foldr 4mo agoThat's an option, but it takes a long time to train and recruit locally, costs a lot of money, and you'll probably have to increase salaries to get the required numbers. If there were an easy and cheap way to recruit all the required staff locally, that would already be happening.
- logancbrown 4mo agoSo the solution is to import uneducated and non-certified individuals from other countries at lower pay and hope you can pay them less and teach them? As if that is any easier? Sounds like the only reason is so health conglomerates can provide lower pay.
- foldr 4mo agoNo, you can import educated and certified healthcare workers, as many European countries, including Switzerland, have been doing for a long time. It’s easier and cheaper, which is why everyone’s doing it.
- logancbrown 4mo ago.
- inigyou 4mo agoCuba has a reputation for producing highly skilled doctors, and they're not allowed to move to the US.
- amunozo 4mo agoFertility rates are low and people are ageing, like everywhere in Europe. There will be a moment that simply there won't be enough workers. The reality is that there is already a lack of healthcare professional even without a population cap that would only get worse given the case.
- amunozo 4mo agoMost of food is imported anyway, Switzerland is a very small country. This is a very silly argument, I'm sorry, it does not make any sense. "making shopping more complicated" what does that even mean. What about pensions? We are talking about foreigners working and paying taxes in Switzerland, a lot of them in very specialized jobs. Health care? A lot of doctors and nurses are foreigners, too. But apart from all these cliches about how good immigrants are for the economy, the main issue is that all bilateral agreements with the EU depend on the free movement of people between Switzerland and the EU. Without that, Switzerland losses access to the EU market and becomes and isolated country. It is nonsense.
- herbst 4mo agoHonestly I don't know import statistics but the majority of food I eat is from Switzerland. A lot of imported products are complicated because they often contain more weird stuff like artificial colouring, sweeteners or thickening stuff. Familien nachzug is a thing where people can get their elderly parents (or anyone family really) to move to Switzerland a lot more easily. This can indeed add additional costs to the pension and health care system. The implications with the EU surely could be problematic.
- lukan 4mo agoHm. Are there any difference in the consequences for the immigrants, if they are kicked out because of arbitrary population cap, instead of anti-migration laws?
- d1sxeyes 4mo agoAs far as I understand, action begins when the population hits 9.5M, so likely no-one gets kicked out, but fewer new visas will be approved, etc.
- herbst 4mo agoThis. As immigrant I don't feel threatened by this at all. I can't vote, and I wouldn't vote for SVP but as far as I can tell this makes kinda sense.
- lukan 4mo agoI am pretty sure there are many people living in swiss with temporary visa's and those will then be de facto kicked out, if they do not get their permissions extended.
- d1sxeyes 4mo agoEither these are already counted in the 9.5M, or they will continue not to be counted.
- fractallyte 4mo agoWhy would you assume the population cap is arbitrary? There's a calculable limit to the population an area of land can sustain. (Yes, some agricultural practices can mitigate that, but that should also be weighed against culture and history, and how much change is acceptable.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrying_capacity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrying_capacity
- lukan 4mo agoOk, so how to calculate it for switzerland in a non arbitrary way? (Btw. I believe switzerland is not trying to be self sufficient anyway, but donimport lots of stuff, like most other countries do)
- acivitillo 4mo agoWhat is rational about this exactly? They share no borders with the countries most immigrants come from, they are moving the problem to Spain, Italy, Greece.
- FabCH 4mo agoVast majority of immigrants to Switzerland come from Spain, Italy, Greece and other EU countries…
- tonfa 4mo agoGermany (16% of recent immigration), followed by France and Italy (12% and 11%). https://cms.news.admin.ch/fileservice/sdweb-docs-prod-nsbcch-files/files/2026/04/21/a7cc3a80-d7f2-45e4-a156-8761f2c392e5.pdf https://cms.news.admin.ch/fileservice/sdweb-docs-prod-nsbcch... (page 5)
- FabCH 4mo agoThis is about Swiss - EU relations. Everyone understands that a yes vote means the Swiss equivalent of „exiting the EU“. All Swiss-EU contracts contain a „Guillotine clause“ where if one contract is broken, all are immediately gone. The initiative explicitly requires breaking the freedom of movement contract, which immediately severs all other links to the EU. This _is_ pure political agenda driven campaign using immigrants.
- seanmcdirmid 4mo agoThis is not a vote for Switzerland to exit the EU...for obvious reasons. It is a vote to exit the Schengen.
- FabCH 4mo agoWhich immediately triggers the guillotine clause in all other bilateral treaties including movement of goods and services, Horizon, energy market etc. „Exiting the EU“ is a perfectly adequate way to summarize it to a world audience that doesn’t care about the details.
- seanmcdirmid 4mo agoI’m pretty sure you just pissed off a bunch of Swiss citizens claiming they are voting to exit the EU. It’s just insulting and insensitive. Incidentally, when brexit was being voted, the only person I knew who thought it was a good thing was Swiss. They are just fiercely independent.
- tonfa 4mo ago"the swiss equivalent" As OP explains, freedom of movement can't be stopped in isolation from the rest of the bilaterals. (btw funnily Schengen is just about the border control, we're talking about freedom of movement which is a different thing, e.g. UK wasn't in Schengen but the freedom of movement applied to UK as well before brexit, tho I guess people use Schengen interchangeably)
- soco 4mo ago
- slopinthebag 4mo agoI agree. Every country has a limit, unspoken or not, let the people decide. Anything less is undemocratic.
- jrflo 4mo agoSo this is essentially a way to reduce immigration to the country? And if they get close to the cap they will "need to take measures, particularly in the areas of asylum and family reunification." Would be curious to learn more about why this is being proposed.
- naths88 4mo agoHere you go (if you understand French, German, Italian or Romansh, there is a video) https://www.admin.ch/fr/initiative-durabilite https://www.admin.ch/fr/initiative-durabilite https://www.udc.ch/actualites/campagnes/pas-de-suisse-a-10-millions-initiative-pour-la-durabilite/ https://www.udc.ch/actualites/campagnes/pas-de-suisse-a-10-m...
- soco 4mo agoThe initiator party wants to get Switzerland out of Schengen and of the EU bilaterals - which will happen as a consequence if this passes. Like a Brexit, basically. Edit: but the CHexit will work just fine, because of the Swiss exceptionalism.
- amunozo 4mo agoWay worse than Brexit, as Switzerland is much smaller, landlocked and had no colonies or anything like that. This would be a suicide for the country. Just populism to mobilize the electorate.
- greenavocado 4mo agoImagine how crazy it is to call a population cap an act of "suicide."
- ceejayoz 4mo agoImagine how crazy it is to think "Switzerland out of Schengen" isn't. It's a small, landlocked country, surrounded on all sides by Schengen nations, that until recently delegated air defense to the EU outside of their air force's office hours. https://www.theguardian.com/world/shortcuts/2014/feb/19/swiss-air-force-ethiopian-airlines-hijacking-office-hours https://www.theguardian.com/world/shortcuts/2014/feb/19/swis...
- shevy-java 4mo agoGreat that they can vote, but this is also stupid. Plus, it works both ways, so if Switzerland wants to add a cap to limit movement then it won't be able to enjoy free movement in the EU either. I totally understand why Norway and Switzerland do not want to join the EU; the EU has tons of problems, but this kind of cherry-picking is simply unfair to the other EU members. (Also, the EU has to stop expanding. It constantly picks up poor countries, and demands that the richer EU countries must now pay more than before. This is also totally unfair.)
- mrazomor 4mo agoIt's not about free movement, but "free trade"/joint market. Having rich countries support its poor neighbors is an ingenious solution to improving your quality of life. You impose your rules, regulations and monetary policy, they get capital for internal improvements. If there's no huge waste or theft (which sadly exists), you end up with wide, strong and stable continent-level middle class. Which is great goal, as we can see when observing Switzerland -- wide, strong and stable country-level middle class. Last time Switzerland attempted something like this (~10y ago), it got burnt, hard (lost a lot of EU related projects and academic financing). Cutting the economical/market ties with the EU, considering its position and dependencies, is a suicide.
- JumpCrisscross 4mo ago> It's not about free movement, but "free trade"/joint market This is entirely about free movement and immigration.
- mrazomor 4mo agoI wasn't precise enough, my bad. I was referring to the comment about which says that by Switzerland restricting the moves from EU, loses the free movement to EU. My comment says that this is less of an issue -- the real issue comes from the market restrictions that EU will install against Switzerland.
- snowpid 4mo ago
- ouk 4mo agoThis initiative is a trap. Essentially, it would allow for the termination of bilateral agreements with Europe. This is what the SVP has been trying to do for decades, and this initiative provides them with a convenient excuse. And it’s particularly ironic because the SVP has always opposed legislation promoting sustainability.
- JumpCrisscross 4mo ago> This initiative is a trap. Essentially, it would allow for the termination of bilateral agreements with Europe Or their preëmptive re-negotiation. I’m not sure describing it as a trap is fair. Nobody voting on is confused about what the thresholds require. I’m not thrilled at how close they both are. But the fundamental idea of a maximum sustainable population for an Alpine republic isn’t abhorrent to me.
- idiotsecant 4mo agois the idea of economic destruction akin to what the UK has suffered abhorrent to you? In your excitement about the one you might consider the other.
- JumpCrisscross 4mo ago> the idea of economic destruction akin to what the UK has suffered abhorrent to you? Yes. But I don’t think Brexit is comparable to what is being proposed here. In Brexit, the UK invoked Article 50. In this case, the EU would have to execute its Guillotine clause. That dramatically changes the framework for and thus possibility of renegotiations.
- mrtksn 4mo agoThere’s not going to be negotiations to drop the core principles, I don’t know why bunch of people keep imagining this. UK was let go, Switzerland will be let go too. Hoping different outcome by negotiation over this is like hoping for negotiating your way out of your gym membership payment when still attending. Not going to happen unless you become a charity case or insignificant, being significant is not a strength its a weakness when you are looking for charity or special treatment. Switzerland can imagine being too important to loose just as UK thought and they will be let go as UK. I guess leaving EU can be useful to those who want to do things to Switzerland just like they did things to UK.
- jl6 4mo agoIt would be saner to set a cap that is in some way tied to ecological footprint, food production, energy generation capacity, and other factors that make a country sustainable and sovereign. Trouble is, I expect that would put nearly every country way over.
- herbst 4mo agoIt is in fact based on stuff like this but hyperboled into a placative number. The "9.142 million initiative" would sell just as good.
- _air 4mo agoSwitzerland is ranked 67th in country population density. For reference, the United Kingdom is ranked 48th and the United States is ranked 183rd. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependencies_by_population_density https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependen...
- MattDamonSpace 4mo agoAmerica is soooo big and soooo sparsely populated
- Octoth0rpe 4mo agoI wonder if that number can be adjusted based on the amount of arable land, or based on the ease of construction (quite the nebulous term here admittedly). The number of mountains presumably makes this hard to compare.
- deepspace 4mo agoThat is an utterly meaningless statistic. Canada, with four times the population, ranks #233, because most of the country is uninhabited / uninhabitable.
- soco 4mo ago> That is an utterly meaningless statistic It's very meaningful, when the main argument is population overcrowding.
- ceejayoz 4mo agoRead the rest of the post.
- Argonaut998 4mo agoThe entire human population can fit within Los Angelas. It’s not a good metric in general. Pressure on public services, resources and housing is far more useful
- arjie 4mo agoThis is such a fascinating referendum. The population is at 9.1m, and at 9.5m it appears they'll stall asylum and family reunification, and at 10m they'll execute a Swexit - Switzerland isn't in the EU but it allows freedom of movement to EU nationals. Boy it is interesting to see what's going on in the world right now. There were so many things that I saw growing up as relatively solid but I just happened to grow up in an era of European unity and American primacy. I thought that even Brexit was a one-off event, but perhaps it is the other way around and European unity is a temporary thing that fragments easily. An interesting age, in the Austen Chamberlain sense.
- teiferer 4mo ago> interesting The word I'd choose instead is "concerning" if not "scary".
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- JumpCrisscross 4mo ago> execute a Swexit It wouldn’t be full Chexit. Just renegotiating and then rejecting the Schengen chapter. It would then be up to the EU to execute its Guillotine clause.
- ceejayoz 4mo agoSure, and I didn't shoot you, I just sent a bullet in your direction.
- tonfa 4mo agoEspecially after we saw how happy the EU was to negotiate (they didn't budge) when https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Swiss_immigration_initiative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Swiss_immigration_initiat... passed. The new initiative is basically the same, but with no leeway to ignore it. (that said I suspect if it passes, there will be something tied to the bilateral referendum in 2027/28 to try to supersede it)
- ChrisArchitect 4mo agoPreviously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47015345 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47015345
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- andrewstuart 4mo agoBut without population growth there will be no economic growth, the economy will stall it will be an unmitigated disaster. Every country must grow as much as it possibly can and then keep growing much more than that.
- JumpCrisscross 4mo ago> without population growth there will be no economic growth This is not true. Productivity is the mediator between a constant population and economic growth. (The world economy has grown much faster than its population over the last 100 years. And the U.S. still out produces the more-populous India.)
- incompatible 4mo agoI assume that's meant sarcastically, but it does sum up the capitalist mindset. It's taken along with the understanding that it's fine if all the new economic output ends up in the hands of the 1%.
- notimetorelax 4mo agoAs a voting member of the population all I can say is - good luck winning it… We have silly initiatives once in a while, that’s because you don’t need that much to start one.
- FabCH 4mo agoDon’t be so quick. You know full well that the polls are 52% no. It will be a razor thin rejection and the SVP will try again until they find one that passes.
- bootsmann 4mo agoIts honestly so annoying, every 3 years we have to vote against the same garbage proposal because the SVP is unwilling to accept the will of the electorate.
- HerbManic 4mo agoPretty much. Many people ignored Brexit because they basically thought it would never get through until it crawled through with a tiny margin. Do not get complacent, once that happens this stuff can quietly grow very fast and suddenly happen in what feels like a total blind side.
- herbst 4mo agoDon't look at tiktok then. It seems pretty much won in there.
- firdunupsa2 4mo ago[dead]
- alberto-m 4mo agoThe strong point of the Swiss political system is that the government is, by (EDIT) convention, made up by all significant parties. No major political force can say “if only we were in power...” because they already are. Also, no party can create disasters and then disappear and leave the consequences to the following election winners to deal with. This referendum is an attempt by the members of SVP/UDC, the right-most party, to show that on immigration topics they have more popular support than what their relative power in the government is. Their proposed solution is very crude, on the other hand the opposition parties' position is basically “do nothing, everything is going fine”. I would have hoped the government to offer some kind of compromise proposal (which they are allowed to do and appears as third option in many referendums), but it seems the Swiss citizens will be faced with a “all or nothing” choice. As a novel immigrant, as much as I appreciate the political system of my new host country, I was quite disappointed by the referendum campaign from both sides. Most of the propaganda concerning this vote has emotional and apocalytic tones (“the immigrants will steal our welfare and overpopulation will transform Switzerland into Kowloon” vs “we will become a pariah state, our pensioners will die unassisted due to the lack of nurses, EU will tariff us to death”).
- JumpCrisscross 4mo agoYeah, the marketing for this referendum has been awful. But as a mixed-heritage Swiss-American (continental Indian), I’m also sympathetic to the argument that some geographies and political systems have a natural maximum population they can sustain. (Unsurprisingly, the SVP’s marketing may be the thing that tips me against this.)
- tonfa 4mo ago> This referendum is an attempt by the members of SVP/UDC, the right-most party, to show that on immigration topics they have more popular support than what their relative power Not really about immigration but EU relationship. Almost every SVP initiative tries to create a contradiction in the constitution with foreign agreements to force an "exit". > The strong point of the Swiss political system is that the government is, by law, made up by all significant parties. It's a tradition, not a rule (the composition of the council is simply the result of an election by the parliament). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_formula_(Swiss_politics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_formula_(Swiss_politics)
- cynicalsecurity 4mo agoLeaving the EU or ending free movement with EU countries leads to a significant increase in immigration from the third world, as Brexit showed.
- JumpCrisscross 4mo agoIt really doesn’t have to. Britain being incompetent is sort of its own chapter in governance.
- idiotsecant 4mo agono true scotsman
- JumpCrisscross 4mo agoNot what that means.
- idiotsecant 4mo agoThats exactly what that means. The UK did the thing you want to do and had a bad outcome because they didn't do it right. The true and best and correct way to get it done of course would have none of those bad outcomes.
- JumpCrisscross 4mo ago> UK did the thing you want to do The UK invoked Article 50. It didn’t have to, but it chose to because Britain. There is no world in which Switzerland is the party that tears up all of its EU agreements. If someone says that’s a bad dog and I say no, that’s a cat, that’s not an example of No True Scotsman, it’s a category error.
- karmakurtisaani 4mo agoFree movement is at the heart of the EU project. You start restricting that and the EU will tear up the agreements. We saw this already some 10 years ago when a similar vote passed, and EU stopped a lot of collaborations with the Swiss.
- derelicta 4mo agoI propose we set it at 4Mio instead, deport all the German speakers and give their properties to the French-speaking ones.
- jeffrallen 4mo agoOui ! Et rostï gratuit pour tous !
- markstos 4mo agoNo Population Growth in My Backyard -- NPGIMBY.
- PowerElectronix 4mo agoFirst step towards a purge civilization. Also, rather narrowminded (to be expected, tho) to not expect your population to naturally grow beyond 10m (at 9.1 now) just based on the normal progress of healthcare and wellbeing.
- dweinus 4mo agoI'm sure they are very proud of themselves for sneaking racist anti-immigrant policy in under the guise of left wing environmental rhetoric.
- FabCH 4mo agoOne interesting point for me is that, IMHO, the propaganda on the „no“ side wad _abysmal_. The counter arguments are awful and they are presented awfully and not even in such high quantity as you would expect. I think it has a good chance of passing just because of that. And then political shitf***y will begin with „we don’t know how to turn this into law!“, which is not good for the basis of democracy…
- Leherenn 4mo agoI agree, but it's also a lot easier to promise a silver bullet to everything than to propose improvements to the actual, hard problems. Yes infrastructure are strained, but it's not like nothing is being done. It's just that it take decades, and will be too little, too late. Same thing with housing. Every one is saying we need to make the procedures more efficient, but when it comes time to actually makes changes, there's no consensus to drop anything. They could have done better, but it would have been very easy to make nothing but empty promises. I prefer they didn't. Although I thought weird that SVP brought the "we will need to increase retirement age" themselves. It's actually pretty likely, but sounds like a massive own goal so close to the vote given how unpopular it is.
- izacus 4mo agoI'm sure blaming the "propaganda" will help you about as much as it helps Americans after voting for their anti immigration party nonsense.
- jeffrallen 4mo ago> don't know how to turn this into law For one time, we can be grateful that the breakdown in direct democracy is gonna save us from an own goal.
- FabCH 4mo agoI‘d rather they didn’t. Undermining democracy itself is far more dangerous than whatever the impact of this referendum would be.
- mamonster 4mo ago
- kuboble 4mo agoBeing in Switzerland it looks to me like this is a really tough referendum. Both sides have very good arguments and from the side it looks like either way the Switzerland has to give up some asoects of its high quality of life. If the initiative succeeds, Switzerland will get a large hit from the cancelation of a lot of bilateral agreements with the EU. If the population exceeds 10M then the current rail and road infrastructure will not handle it well. I have already been on a train which refused to move due overload. And it would only depart if enough people have disembarked. The autobahn are already having hours long traffic jams at peak hours and with extra million people it will multiply. And it's almost impossible to significantly improve the throughput of rail and autobahn without extreme projects. It looks like a lose / lose situation is a sense and a people are going to decide which hit to take.
- contagiousflow 4mo agoCan you explain how adding frequency to the train network will not work to compensate higher ridership?
- hvb2 4mo agoYou can't add more trains if the schedule is full to the brink. You would need to add train tracks, and that requires big projects
- throw-the-towel 4mo agoAnd it is in fact so full that traibs crossing over from Germany sometimes get denied entry into the Swiss networks because there's no room to fit them in the schedule.
- sixhobbits 4mo agouh they get denied entry if they are late because german trains often are and it wreaks havoc on swiss timetabling where trains still generally depart to the minute and many commuters plan their day around making connections with a 2 minute change time. if the ICE from basel to zurich is late then switzerland runs their own replacement in its spot and denies entry to the german train to avoid knockon delays. yes the schedule is full but its not just no space for more trains, more no space for unpredictable trains
- dguest 4mo agoI'm probably missing something. This would seem a bit problematic for some organizations that put Switzerland on the world stage, e.g. - The UN - CERN - The Red Cross - The WHO - The World Economic Forum - ETH Zurich There are probably a lot of others I'm missing. I'd imagine international banks also benefit from recruiting foreign nationals to do business with their home countries, and not just because there's a shortage of domestic labor. The whole point of these organizations is to be the headquarters of a much larger international project. I guess maybe there will be a lot of weird exceptions if this were to go though. Otherwise, good luck sourcing your diplomats from entirely Swiss people.
- throw-the-towel 4mo agoThe Swiss have historically been so isolationist, they refused to join the fricking UN until 2002. Some of the headquarters you're referencing have been there since the 19th century, they'll be fine.
- dguest 4mo agoIsolationist is an interesting way to describe Switzerland: economically they're probably one of the most internationally integrated, and thus dependent, countries in the world.
- throw-the-towel 4mo agoTrue, and yet at the same time they're incredibly wary of political and military alliances.
- nairboon 4mo agoFor good reason, at the Congress of Vienna 1815 the largest powers in Europe signed a treaty that guarantees Switzerland's neutrality. As a result, Switzerland got spared in world war one and two. So far not entering into any alliances has been a very good strategy for Switzerland to ensure peace.
- bapo 4mo agoSwiss here and able to vote. In fact, just posted my voting letter today, before taking a 1h bike ride through the biggest city in Switzerland, having lots of space and freedom biking around in our beautiful city. When taking the train to my parents house, I pass several farms and landly smaller cities. Alot of free space in between those, train mostly has spare seats, depending on rush hour timings. There usually are several big commercials on private farmer land stating “NO to 10 Million Population”, prompting people to vote YES on the SVP/UDC initiative. The initiative’s lancers seem to play a lot on people’s fear of overcrowding, which even in the most population-dense city in Switzerland seems like a joke. There’s a lot of space and quality of living is still amazing here. Yes, during rush hours, you might have to stand for 15-30min in public transport. Yes, finding an appartment is getting harder and more difficult. But is this a problem of more people coming here or the failures of the state preparing for future population growth? We have so much space, benefits from diverse cultures and love for human beings. My letter was specifically voting AGAINST this initiative.
- Schiendelman 4mo agoIt's not just the state - it's your neighbors pushing the same building restrictions as the rest of the developed world, where people say "I don't want another neighbor next to me", which results in too few apartments for even the existing people's children...
- kakacik 4mo agoYou should check Geneva then - they are building apartment buildings like crazy in past 5 years. Too much if you ask me - in very center, almost every small park or green spot is now 6 story concrete building. Only the biggest protected parks are untouched. City is visibly and permanently degrading into concrete field. Weirdly schizophrenic move - they try to keep pushing bike lanes everywhere, even where not safe to share the road, yet they also remove greenery and trees. I guess the money is too juicy. But not to just bash - they build on outskirts too. Switzerland as a country usually strikes good balance between various extremes, much better than US or EU countries do. I have no doubt they will work it out, not ideally, but better than most. Immigration they tackled much better than rest of Europe for example. And for the vote - its 1:1 Brexit. Vote for capping, damage your long term prosperity, and those unpopular jobs still will need to be staffed, or country will work worse, be dirtier etc. And if one can earn cleaning streets or putting stuff in shop shelves as much as cca doctor in France (with higher costs of life, but it doesn't have to be extreme), the amount of people willing to try coming and working is basically endless. The idea one can freeze time and keep the country as some idealized image from their childhood (without the nasty stuff that happened ie in 70s to orphaned kids en masse, aka Verdingkinder), one would have to become second North Korea. Everything changes these days, massively and quickly. Dictators won't be sending their kids to study here under false names anymore, would they.
- trgn 4mo agoabsent productivity increases, population growth is just there to maintain the welfare state for retirees, it's a perpetuum mobile. apart from that, i dont even know what the benefits of a growing population would be. switzerland is trying a different tack through democratic means.
- mahkeiro 4mo agoYou don’t know the advantage of a growing population, but you have not far to go in Europe to see the effect of a decreasing population, and it doesn’t really look good.
- trgn 4mo agoisnt that just a temporary bottleneck? a self-confident generation might make the sacrifice. plus, the opposite of increasing isnt necessarily decreasing, stabilizing is another one.
- soco 4mo agoI don't see anything wrong with maintaining the welfare state for the retirees. The retirees are exactly the ones who built Switzerland to be what it is now, including its welfare state. It's a great result but of you don't like it, you are free to build a better one in your own country, with retirees under the bridges if you prefer.
- _trampeltier 4mo agoThe question is not wrong, but the answer is. Here in Switzerlands middle land, the streets and trains are very crowded, not just during peek hours. On the other hand, it's already now hard to find people for almost any kind of work.
- lifestyleguru 4mo agoI think they suffer from universal problem that the job doesn't pay for housing anywhere within reasonable commute to the job, assuming that it's even possible to rent any housing at all.
- latency-guy2 4mo ago> On the other hand, it's already now hard to find people for almost any kind of work. Why is it hard? Can't find a pick from the ~3% unemployment rate? That's approx 100-200k people, are you sure you can't find a person in that selection? Maybe you're asking a bit much for standards that you are weakly attempting at a defense or justification. This argument without any other qualifications reads to me as whinging that you're not getting everything you want. So lower your standards, offer more pay, or just move to a different country.
- sltkr 4mo agoInteresting that you're downvoted for pointing this out. Lots of people in Switzerland are struggling to find jobs, but no, they're all unfit, and we must import more immigrants. Then of course those immigrants are laid off and contribute to the unemployment number, and rather than hiring them back, people will say we should import even more immigrants, and so on.
- sltkr 4mo ago> On the other hand, it's already now hard to find people for almost any kind of work. Lots of people in Switzerland are struggling to find jobs, especially in the tech sector after mass layoffs and outsourcing. If you're looking to hire a full-stack software engineer in Switzerland, send me a message! But I bet you won't, because there isn't actually an abundance of jobs in Switzerland.
- okkdev 4mo agoAbsolute dogshit we are voting on this week. Hopefully both gets denied. We are working ourselves into the bleakest future.
- didgetmaster 4mo ago[flagged]
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- oytis 4mo agoI think the Swiss are not known to be particularly open-minded in Europe. They have ton of money though and the landscape is great
- greggoB 4mo agoGiven the initiative doesn't mention ethnicity/race but rather a population cap of people in general, Europeans (who are also white, FYI) might find it odd to do as you suggest. The US, meanwhile, has halted ALL refugees, except for white South Africans [0]. I leave it to you to decide if that discernment seems fair or not. [0] https://www.democracynow.org/2026/5/21/afrikaners https://www.democracynow.org/2026/5/21/afrikaners
- vitalyan1234 4mo agothere are several they/them in this very thread saying that it's a violation of human rights. so yeah.
- lifestyleguru 4mo agoSwitzerland is much less desirable and attractive than they think they are.
- greggoB 4mo agoThat's not at all reflected in the immigration numbers: ot has one of the highest proportional rates of immigration in Europe, and the brain drain of top talent from neighbouring countries has actually been a point of moral finger-wagging. Want to try again?
- lifestyleguru 4mo agoThen set the population limit and take the best of the best only. Go for it. Being so popular nothing can go wrong just like your most reputable bank cannot bankrupt, right?
- greggoB 4mo ago1. Switzerland is a highly desirable location fo skilled workers to migrate to. Don't hate the player, hate the data. 2. Setting a population limit (especially in the manner proposed) would obviously have a negative effect on (1). I think most in this thread agree with that assessment, so not much to gain from yelling at us, no? 3. Credit Suisse being CH's most "reputable" bank would be news to... pretty much everyone? [0] If you have a hate-boner for the country, that's yours to have, but maybe go somewhere else to deal with that. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_Suisse#Reputation_and_rankings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_Suisse#Reputation_and_r...
- lifestyleguru 4mo agoI'm not sure what we're arguing about but suck it up, I'm not moving to Switzerland!
- greggoB 4mo ago
- black_13 4mo ago[dead]
- OhNoNotAgain_99 4mo ago[dead]
- rdevsrex 4mo agoThis is a good move. I hope Switzerland doesn't become like the UK.
- vor_ 4mo agoPopulation caps by fiat have always been terrible moves. Example: every country that's ever had them.
- embedding-shape 4mo agoWhat counties have had population caps exactly, like the one proposed? I know China and Singapore tried to limit birth rates, otherwise some countries have various quotas/intake control for residencies, but those countries don't seem especially "failed", like Andorra or Singapore, not do they have "population caps".
- snvzz 4mo agoThe Swiss can choose what they want for their country. If they don't want immigrants, so be it. This is proper Democracy.
- derelicta 4mo ago[dead]
- einpoklum 4mo ago> ... population has grown... ... number of people immigrating depends primarily on the labour market. When the economy is strong, companies... often recruit the ... workers they need from the EU. > ... > The... sustainability initiative...[:] If the permanent resident population exceeds 9.5 million ... the Federal Council and Parliament will need to take measures, particularly in the areas of asylum and family reunification. So, this measure says that if companies need more workers, Switzerland will refuse to grant asylum, and will prevent Swiss residents from having their spouse, child or parent come live with them. Regardless of whether population capping is legitimate or not, that sounds quite nasty. If the measure had said "in case of population growing, there will be a moratorium on recruiting employees from abroad", then you would have a discussion.
- h4kunamata 4mo agoAustralia here, Switzerland knows something we don't, it is sad.
- sakex 4mo agoWhile I agree we need to keep our immigration under control, this is not the solution.
- noncoml 4mo ago[flagged]
- sltkr 4mo agoHacker News admins: can we please ban illiterate morons like this who think they are contributing anything of value by responding directly to the post title alone, while obviously not having read the actual posted article?
- noncoml 4mo ago[flagged]
- sltkr 4mo agoWhere is the joke? What is funny about hundreds of thousand of Swiss people being unemployed and housing costs increasing every year? And clearly you still haven't bothered to read the initiative, which doesn't kick out anyone, but demands the government revises immigration laws if the population hits 9.5 million before 2050. But you _have_ found time to dig through my comments to find dirt on me to ridicule me. Clearly you're a hateful and despicable person. > Better focus your efforts on finding a job that the foreigners stole from you I never said a foreigner stole anything from me; I merely objected to the idea that Switzerland needs _more_ foreigners to work jobs, while hundreds of thousands of residents are looking for work. I'm clearly a terrible human being for wanting to... checks notes work a job for a living.
- noncoml 4mo ago[dead]
- Acrobatic_Road 4mo agois this just a disguised anti-immigration policy? How is switzerland supposed to get to 10 million people with its fertility rate?
- dbg31415 4mo agoIt’s still common in Geneva to see lawn jockeys on display. This is 100% about being racist with extra steps.
- dboreham 4mo agoLogan's Run!
- ekelsen 4mo agoWhat would they do if the natural birthrate were to tip it over the threshold? (Perhaps unlikely at current birthrates, but given that laws last long times, perhaps worth considering?)
- jeffrallen 4mo agoThe initiative does not mention what. Because the initiative's sponsor are anti-migration.
- ekelsen 4mo agoYeah I'm aware -- just pointing out that this threshold could be reached by other means and the options for enforcing it if it happens via birthrate are all pretty grim.
- verminator468 4mo ago[flagged]
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- groan 4mo agoThis is amazing and I hope it passes.
- wg0 4mo agoDo they know what happened to China's population control program?
- elektrontamer 4mo agoI always dreamt of migrating to some european country but seeing their suicidal policy of importing the worst from all over the world I've completely abandoned the idea. If this passes maybe there is some hope after all. Note: In case anyone wants to exclaim xenophobia or some other nonsense I'm also part of the "xenos". So no it's not xenophobic to want your country to be safe and prosperous.
- TrappedInCorner 4mo agoI migrated with my parents at 3 years old to a neighboring EU country from another EU country. I agree with you strongly. As a migrant myself, I've become very critical about immigration in recent years. I've come to realize just how naive we europeans had become. Also just how penalized the idea of 'I want my country to maintain its culture, and I want my countrymen to look like me, smell like me and behave like me' had become, like it was some sort of a terrible sin to let anyone know you think like this. Thankfully we are waking up to our horrible reality and starting to take measures to fix the problem. Hopefully it is not too late. Although understandable from a single family or individual perspective, migrating from one EU country to another EU country to escape problems is futile, and you should really try to help fix the country your in, according to what the natives want.
- garte 4mo agoThis does not make sense. How can you differentiate between "good" migrants (apparently you yourself) and "bad" ones? Shouldn't you remove yourself because you're a migrant to increase the quality of life for the "natives"?
- TrappedInCorner 4mo agoWhat constitutes a good migrant is up to the natives and the government of a country to decide. At the end of the day it doesnt matter what how good of a migrant I think I am. Any day the native population can turn very hostile and ram any migrant out of the country for any reason, be it crime record, ethnicity or something else.
- tsoukase 4mo agoA population ceiling is not a serious decision for a modern country like Switzerland, esp given their 1.29 kids per family. They could cap by proffesion, region or even origin nation. But a hard cap reminds something between One child policy of China and Brexit, which both didn't go well. First problem will be the shortage of workers in specific fields or regions.
- 6510 4mo agoI read a hilarious comment from a Swish once, he was confused how we could take in so many migrants from all over the world. He was all for helping people, he could see the economic benefits, he understood that the native population was aging. What he didn't get was how we were going to preserve the familiar country we grew up in. The new people won't love your country the way you do. They will see it for what it is, a strange collection of cultural weirdness and they will struggle leaving their own cultural weirdness behind. Why would they? His final point, what if there is a war? If you were a migrant, would you die for your new country or just move on to greener pastures?
- amunozo 4mo agoPeople are missing the point. The problem of capping the population is that this would end all bilateral agreements with the EU, as these depend on the free movement of people, which would severely damage the economy of a country that, even rich, it's really small, landlocked, surrounded by EU countries and dependent on their economy.
- tastyeffectco 4mo agoAs a Moroccan who recently moved to the Zurich area of Switzerland with my Swiss wife and kids, we found ourselves settling here for medical reasons and rediscovering a new way of life. When I see this debate, I mostly feel confused. I keep thinking about us as human beings and what drives us, what makes us fear others, or simply makes us uncomfortable. I think this is, and always will be, a human trait: fear of losing what we believe we deserve more than others, fear of change, and fear of competition (even when there isn't any). And I agree—Switzerland is one of the most beautiful countries in the world, with some of the kindest individuals I've ever met.
- newbie4u 4mo agoWhat if these comments are massively astroturfed? As far as I can tell economic growth comes at the expense of everything. And if you can’t manage economic growth that benefits all instead of the few at the top, without endless population growth, then your political/economic system is cancerous. Tangentially, diversity is the strength of the exploitative psychopathic ruling class in the West. Why can’t a country or city or region live in balance with the rest of the planet? Most people want to have families or would clearly be happier if they had the option. Fix these problems, live in balance sustainably. This is clearly not the plan for the West. Weaponizing the higher ideals to increase economic exploitation has to be one of the most evil endeavors in the history of humanity.
- up2isomorphism 4mo agoThis is totally understandable from human’s perspective. On the other hand this is a result of global market and trade and most importantly growth based economics. So it is very hard to cure a problem by removing the symptoms.