Switzerland is set to vote this summer on a proposal aimed at capping the country’s population at 10 million, the latest effort by the nation’s leading right-wing party to restrict immigration.
The Swiss People’s Party (SVP), which holds the most seats in parliament, announced the referendum on Wednesday after gathering enough support through petition signatures.
The measure, which will be put on the national ballot on June 14, comes just as the population neared 9.1 million, according to the Federal Statistics Office.
The anti-immigration campaign was proposed as officials noted that foreign-born residents now make up about 27% of the population.
The SVP, which has long sought to curb rising migration, said that more than 1 million immigrants from the European Union (EU) came to Switzerland in 2024.
The party called the situation “uncontrolled immigration,” saying that “the majority of the Swiss population suffers” from increased demand on environmental resources and infrastructure.
“Our small country is bursting at the seams,” the party said. “Nature is being paved over. There are ever more traffic jams on the roads, overburdened public transport, overburdened schools, housing shortage and rising rents, massively increasing crime and exploding costs for Swiss taxpayers.”
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If the measure is enshrined into law, both Swiss citizens and foreign residents must not exceed a total population of 10 million before 2050.
If the population reaches 9.5 million before then, the government may take steps to curb growth by introducing measures on asylum and family reunification, noting that many immigrants — primarily Muslim men from North Africa, the Middle East and Afghanistan — enter through asylum applications.
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Major Swiss political parties outside the SVP, including centrist, left-leaning and liberal groups, have reportedly rejected the initiative.
Critics cautioned that the passing of such a measure could strain Switzerland’s relations with its European neighbors, as most foreign-born residents hail from other EU countries.
In response, the SVP said lawmakers “could not have made it clearer that they don’t care about the concerns of the population, which is increasingly suffering from uncontrolled immigration.”
They also stressed that they do not intend to terminate the “free movement of persons agreement with the EU,” which allows European citizens to move and work freely across borders, and said such cancellation would remain a last resort if the Federal Council fails to limit immigration.
