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The 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, basica
by soco 4mo ago
The 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...
- seanmcdirmid 4mo agoPlenty of us remember when Switzerland was not in the Schengen though. This might be good for Americans, who haven't been able to get working visas in Switzerland since EU countries now have priority. But otherwise, I don't see much changing beyond border procedures.
- ceejayoz 4mo agoAs with Brexit, leaving is likely to result in a much stricter regime than the status quo from before the establishment of the system.
- seanmcdirmid 4mo agoTrue, maybe. It is really hard to say. I'm not pro leaving in any sense (beyond being an American who used to work in Switzerland and wouldn't have that chance today because of the Schengen).
- luke5441 4mo agoMost of the downsides would be on the goods side. Swiss companies would loose market access and the chance of "better" trade agreements is even worse then the UK, especially currently.
- greenavocado 4mo agoI already pass through Swiss customs when driving in, so it makes virtually no difference to me besides slowing things down at the border potentially.
- ceejayoz 4mo agoSchengen covers border controls (i.e. immigration/visits), not customs ones (the stuff you bring with).
- greenavocado 4mo agoWhen you drive through there is someone standing looking at the line of cars and if they don't like the way you look they point to the side and you have to explain yourself and your cargo. It's like an arbitrary border control right now. Most of the time I'm waved through.
- greenavocado 4mo agoWhen the neighboring countries become a threat again, they will place high explosives back inside the bridges and mountain passes.
- skywhopper 4mo agoAt the very least it’s an infringement of human rights.
- joe_mamba 4mo agoYes, because in the human rights bill it says that everyone in the world has the right to go live in Switzerland.
- azan_ 4mo agoIs being able to move to Switzerland really an universal human right?
- throw-the-towel 4mo agoTell that to the EU.
- amunozo 4mo agoIt's not the population cap, but that bilateral agreements with the EU depend on the free movement of people. Without it, Switzerland could lose access to the EU market, which accounts for 51% of their exports. Switzerland cannot just choose whatever they like from the agreements and cancel what they don't. They will have to accept whatever in order to keep in the EU common market, or the country will suffer massive troubles. Switzerland needs the EU much more than the other way around.
- seanmcdirmid 4mo agoThis is only about the Schengen, Switzerland is not a part of the EU, and even before the Schengen, the borders between the EU and Switzerland weren't heavily controlled. I got in trouble at German airport for going by train from Lausanne to Milan, and then plane to Berlin, I had no entry step into the Schengen because they didn't bother doing that on trains (pre-Schengen). Everything else is negotiated under separate treaties. This would revert Switzerland to pre-Schengen, which is sad, but it wouldn't be suicidal.
- tonfa 4mo ago> This is only about the Schengen, Switzerland is not a part of the EU Not really, the bilateral are a package and the EU doesn't want CH to pick and chose. If freedom of movement stops, a whole lot of thing also stop. It happened the last time SVP got something similar voted on (introduction of quota for foreign immigration), on a smaller scale (erasmus and horizon which are the higher ed and academic research collaboration, CH was a heavy recipient of the latter).
- JumpCrisscross 4mo ago> the bilateral are a package and the EU doesn't want CH to pick and chose It really depends who is in power where when and if the 10mm limit is crossed. If there is a conservative in Paris or Berlin, chances are Switzerland can simply abrogate Schengen.
- tonfa 4mo agoUnlike UK, the impact to the EU is minimum and Switzerland doesn't have leverage (if the EU still stands). Of course if you have EU dismantlers in power anyway in FR/DE, they'll just be happy to sabotage.
- JumpCrisscross 4mo ago> unless you're Swiss, your opinion is irrelevant I think we do bilaterally with our trading partners/border friends. Freedom of movement across the EU has created a massive backlash. Politicians can keep ignoring that. Or they can modify Schengen, perhaps by admitting that FOM makes immigration decisions a collective one. (Germany letting in a massive wave of immigration means a massive wave of immigrants for everyone.)
- transcriptase 4mo agoMakes far more sense than the “population must increase forever” pyramid scheme the rest of the West is running. Check out Canada for a look at what happens when you try to juice GDP via population growth at the expense of literally everything else.
- ryandrake 4mo agoWhat happens, specifically? Not that I'm a fan of "population increase forever" but what's wrong with Canada?
- alephnerd 4mo agoA lot of people on the internet blame Canada's malaise on their historically lax immigration stance. While to a certain extent it has caused some social issues (eg. Indian, Chinese, Viet organized crime took advantage of it to leave crackdowns during the 2010s and 2020s and degree mills abounded), it's impact on the economy is overstated. Canada's economy was always a resource extraction and construction driven economy, and 1. the blocking of the Keystone Pipeline project (thus making Canadian ONG less competitive than American sourced ONG for refineries) 2. the rise of America as a net energy producer and exporter especially in ONG (thanks Obama/Biden, Trump/Pence/Tillerson, and former Govs Burgum and Perry) 3. the blocking of the GasLink LNG project (blocked the ability for Canada to build marketshare in Asia) 4. the blocking of the Northern Gateway pipeline project (blocked the ability for Canada to build marketshare in Asia) 5. the blocking of the Energie Saguenay LNG project (blocked the ability for Canada to build marketshare in Europe) 6. Bipartisan support in America for trade barriers against Canada even before the Trump tarriffs (eg. Biden and Trump's softwood lumber tariff policy) 7. (becuase this failure is bipartisan) Blue provinces halting renewables projects in Alberta and Saskatchewan while American governors on both sides took full advantage of CHIPS and the IRA, thus preventing Canada from building domestic dealflow in GreenTech all played a much larger role than immigration in causing economic malaise for Canada. At the end of the day, Canada's economy in the 2010s was structurally unprepared for America becoming a major energy producer and exporter by the 2020s, and was unable to successfully build infra to make Canadian ONG cost competitive against American ONG nor the ability to sell outside of North America. THIS is the legacy of the Trudeau administration - if your economy is based on resource extraction, fighting against it for political reasons is self-harming. Canada's GDP has essentially been stagnant for almost 15 years, and all kinds of infrastructure projects that would have helped the Canadian economy grow were blocked. Additionally, Canada has the same economic complexity [0] as Bulgaria [1] and Serbia [2] and is even less complex than Mexico [3], which makes Canada the least competitive choice for FDI within NAFTA. Australia is in the exact same boat as Canada, but unlike Canada, their political class fully backed their resource extraction industries. [0] - https://atlas.hks.harvard.edu/countries/124/export-complexity https://atlas.hks.harvard.edu/countries/124/export-complexit... [1] - https://atlas.hks.harvard.edu/countries/100/export-complexity https://atlas.hks.harvard.edu/countries/100/export-complexit... [2] - https://atlas.hks.harvard.edu/countries/688/export-complexity https://atlas.hks.harvard.edu/countries/688/export-complexit... [3] - https://atlas.hks.harvard.edu/countries/484/export-complexity https://atlas.hks.harvard.edu/countries/484/export-complexit...
- dnautics 4mo agohow did they ever survive in the pre-EU/schengen/EEC era?
- ceejayoz 4mo agoDivorce is harder than a wedding.
- skywhopper 4mo agoTheir neighbors were similarly restrictive back then, and the European economy was not as integrated.
- joe_mamba 4mo ago> the European economy was not as integrated And somehow despite this, the European economies had the biggest share of global GDP back then. And now they're more integrated than ever, have more immigration than ever, have created the EU as their "big daddy" leader and enforcer, and yet they can't stop losing share of GDP to the rest of the world. Stange. Maybe they should hit the brakes for a second and reflect that their current course of action isn't the cure but the disease. Like ASML, Concorde and Airbus were created via European cooperation when EU was a nascent baby and present day Schengen freedom of movement did not exist. Now we EU bureaucracy, open borders unlimited freedom of movement but haven't created the next Airbus or ASML. Food for thought that the EU is tackling the wrong issues on its economic stagnation. Maybe the solution is not more EU, but less EU.
- jltsiren 4mo agoThe root issue was already visible in the 1970s. When birth rates drop below replacement, you eventually end up with a society with more old people than kids. And when you have a society like that, you naturally invest more in maintaining the society and less in building the future.
- j_maffe 4mo ago> Maybe the solution is not more EU, but less EU. You haven't given a single reason why that would be beneficial.