On June 14, voters in Switzerland will get to have their say on a proposal to limit immigration to the country.

Entitled "No to a Switzerland of 10 million residents," the scheme would be designed to monitor the landlocked nation’s demographic development and stop it’s current population of over 9 million people to balloon further by another 10 percent by 2050.

The proposal is being championed by the Swiss People's Party (SVP), which is the Alpine country's biggest party and originally has its roots in rural politics and agriculture policy.

However, the SVP has grown increasingly opposed to immigration in recent years and is also opposed to Switzerland working more closely with the EU.

The SVP has not specified what exact limits it would like to set to immigration under the proposal but has rather indicated that the subsequent policy would be based on monitoring immigration trends and responding accordingly.

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Bern says 'no' to proposal

As the date of the referendum is moving closer, the Swiss government has come out publicly, rejecting the premise of the plebiscite; this, however, is merely a reflection of the government's view of the proposal and bears no weight in itself.

Bern said the initiative to limit immigration numbers would endanger "Switzerland's prosperity, internal security and humanitarian tradition."

In a statement, the government also said that the scheme could weaken Swiss relations with the EU, highlighting that the scheme "calls into question the proven bilateral path with the EU."

In its response, the Swiss government said the proposal to limit immigration could have "far-reaching consequences", including the free movement of people and goods with the EU.

While Switzerland is not part of the EU, it works closely with its European partners and is a member of Europe's Schengen zone, which allows for the movement of people and goods without border checks.

The small nation is surrounded almost entirely by EU nations, which have long become go-to partners in trade, security and border management.

Switzerland wants closer alignment with EU

The proposal comes at a time when Bern and Brussels are, if anything, actually planning to work more closely together. Earlier this month, the Swiss government signed a number of agreements with the EU to that effect, including greater ties on issues like the free movement of people, trade and transport.

That package still has to be signed off by the Swiss parliament before heading also into a referendum expected to take place in 2027.

In order to ensure widespread popular support and get the package to pass, the Swiss government made sure that the deal came with a specific safeguard clause, under which Switzerland would be allowed to unilaterally restrict immigration in the event of serious social or economic problems.

With the majority of the Swiss electorate historically being in favor of working closely with the EU, many think that the motion will pass, though the growing support of the SVB might cast a shadow over that certainty.

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Far-right blames immigration for major political challenges

The government's reservations on limiting immigration numbers to Switzerland meanwhile appear to be of little interest to the SVP, which claims that "(u)ncontrolled immigration ... is overwhelming our infrastructure, destroying our environment, and driving rents even higher," while insisting that "action must finally be taken."

The far-right party has also linked rising crime to growing immigration, saying in a post published earlier this week that "criminal asylum-migrants partly commit the worst acts of violence," adding that "the internal safety of Switzerland is under threat" by what it considers to be a "current state of asylum chaos, costing taxpayers billions."

With about 27 percent of the country having an immigrant background, according to the Swiss Federal Statistical Office (FSO), right-wing groups have also repeatedly argued that the culture of the small Alpine could face a sense of erosion if this trend were to continue; some supporters of the scheme have gone as far as labelling it as an "initiative for sustainability."

Supporters of the SVP-led referendum on greater immigration controls further claim that if the population of Switzerland were to exceed 10 million by 2050, the landlocked nation would not be able to cope with the economic challenges of that scenario; that allegation, however, does not take any other factors into account, such as projected economic growth or other demographic changes.

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Swiss population almost set to exceed 10 million

Overall birth rates in Switzerland have largely remained constant for the past quarter century, with a slight downward trend being observed in recent years, according to Statista; Switzerland is now among the nations in the world with low birth rates, ranking 35th lowest globally. 

While it is still unclear whether the Swiss population will reach such dimensions in the next 24 years, net migration has been identified as a far bigger driver of population growth in the country than birthrates, according to FSO.

However, if population trends observed in the past quarter century or so continue, Switzerland’s population will likely surpass 10 million and rather even start to approach the mark of 11 million:

Looking back to the beginning of the 21st century, the country's population stood just over 7 million people 25 years ago, which means an overall growth of about 2 million residents from 2001 to today. To keep the population under the mark of 10 million residents by 2050, the growth rate over the next 25 years would therefore statistically have to be roughly half that compared to the past 25 years.

In turn, this would mean that if the SVP proposal were to succeed, Switzerland would have to pull the break and only allow about half the number of immigrants into the country compared to what the country has been practising for the past 25 years.

However, with Switzerland being located geographically at the heart of the EU, and with considerably fewer asylum seekers and irregular immigrants reaching its EU neighbors in recent years, it is expected that — equally — fewer immigrants will reach Swiss borders, which could likely account for somewhat of an automatic dent in that projected population growth.

This is further evidenced by a sharp decline in asylum numbers in Switzerland in the past year; furthermore, as a voluntary signatory to much of the EU's Migration and Asylum Pact, which is due to be fully implemented later this year, a further decline in the number of immigrants in Europe is also expected to trickle down to Switzerland.

Under the plan, migration numbers into Europe will be managed more directly with a view to keeping them at a much lower rate.

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with AFP