Election results theme
Which migration-skeptical EU citizen will be the first to start calculating how many migrants that can fit in a train car?
Switzerland: No to limiting the population. After today's referendum in Switzerland, preliminary figures show that the Swiss are saying no to the proposal to limit the country's population to ten million people. As it stands, about 55 percent have voted no. Check out the segment on SVT Rapport.
Max 10 million inhabitants – Switzerland votes on population cap. On Sunday, the Swiss will go to the polls for a unique vote – should the country introduce a maximum limit on the number of inhabitants? The hope from the initiators, the right-wing nationalist SVP, is to be able to limit migration to the country, says an SVP member of the Swiss National Council. It's not childbirth or family planning that is the focus of the initiative, but migration. Since the early 2000s, Switzerland's population has grown from just over seven million to today's little over nine million. Supporters of the initiative argue that this increase has caused infrastructure, public services, and the housing market to become overstretched, and that it has led to higher crime. – We don't want quantitative immigration but rather to focus more on qualitative, says Mike Egger.
The proposal means that if the population reaches 9.5 million, the government will need to limit asylum, family reunification, and residence permits. If it reaches 10 million, international agreements can also be torn up – including the one on free movement with the EU. Check out the segment on SVT News.