Ten-million Switzerland

Today the voters of Switzerland voted on, among other things, a proposal initiated by the right-wing Swiss People's Party (SVP), to limit the population growth in Switzerland. As I write, the first predictions of the result are appearing: roughly 45% 'Yes' to 55% 'No'. It would be a surprise if this changed much when the remaining votes are counted. At the moment I have no further information about turnout, but I'll add more information this evening, when things have settled down a bit.

Whatever happens in this case, the situation is the same with every complex and difficult referendum: the normal political processes have produced no result, so let's let the voters decide. What usually results from this die-roll is a near 50-50 split with a rounding error majority. We have discussed the FoS First Law of Referendums a number of times on this website. The situation is repeated today as the Swiss vote on the 'Ten million Switzerland' proposal: all the polls said the result is too close to call.

A stick of dynamite is wrapped up in the proposal: if the proposal is accepted and Switzerland attempts to set limits to the immigration system, the EU, playing hardball as usual, has made it clear that the result of the long and complex negotiations between the EU and plucky little Switzerland that have recently been completed will be dead in the water. A restriction on the free movement of people between Switzerland and the EU will violate that part of the agreement. The EU position on the framework is 'all or nothing', so the years of diplomacy will be dumped in the bin.

The SVP, the most popular political party in Switzerland, often demonstrates that its heart is in the right place but that its head is in a hole. Any attempt to reduce immigration or freedom of movement, however it is dressed up, will enrage the EU.

From its birth as an economic union, the EU has always pursued its ambition to become a single state in which national issues become irrelevant. A defining character of such a state is the free movement of its citizens across all of its territory. Even though Switzerland is not (yet) a member of the EU, it cannot be allowed to break the principle of free movement in any of its treaties with the EU.

Those opposing the proposal say that Switzerland will be unable to find enough low-level workers to staff the health service or the lower-paid and dirtier jobs that the Swiss themselves prefer not to do. In this, Switzerland resembles the great historical states such as the Athenians and the Romans: a small, cultivated, privileged and extremely rich class of citizens resting upon a broad base of slave labour. The Swiss pay their slaves, of course, and pay them comparatively well, but the parallel is not far from the truth.

Leaving aside the EU problem, the ramifications of this seemingly simple measure will be extremely complex. Once a population of 9.5 million is reached, numerous measures will automatically come into force: restriction on the acceptance of asylum seekers, restrictions on families joining existing migrants and the repatriation of provisionally accepted asylum seekers. Once the 10 million limit is reached, action must be taken to reduce the causes of whatever is causing this continued immigration.

A Gretchen-Frage is allowed: If the situation is so bad, why wait for the population to grow to 9.5 or 10 million? Why not take these measures now?

We can answer that. It is just a nice round number that is suited to political discourse. The 'measures' behind it are hardly going to change anything. Media hype in Switzerland and Europe has made this referendum out to be somehow epochal on the subject of immigration. It is not. There is no mention of differential birth rates, for example; no mention of the despoilation of town and country caused by NetZero fanaticism; no mention of the fact that the asylum seekers, who are the targets of the initial measure, make up only around a quarter of immigrant numbers per year – the 'regular' immigrants, the three-quarters, will only by affected when 10 million is reached, at which point some yet undefined renegotiation of the rules that allowed them in will be carried out, and the problem will be solved somehow, or not, as the case may be.

And the 'fright issue', the amount of concrete covering once idyllic landscapes, is hardly anything to do with population growth. In my small village there are at this moment cranes visible on the construction sites of several housing developments in the village. These are apartment blocks with holiday flats for people who live in the lowlands and want a taste of the alpine life with an investment opportunity. No immigrant could afford one of these apartments, either to buy or to rent, and since there are no jobs on offer here anyway the only places to be are in the towns. Perhaps effects of the 'overpopulation problem' seen by the SVP might be mitigated if the rich Swiss citizens limited themselves to just one place of residence.

From the results so far in, it seems that the Swiss government has dodged a bullet: the precious framework agreement with the EU is still intact and the immigration business can proceed as usual.