Switzerland Stays Open

With nearly 55 percent, Swiss voters reject the Swiss People's Party initiative to cap the population at ten million. In the middle of a European mood turning against immigration, one nation chooses the open door and partnership with Europe!

On Sunday, nearly 55 percent of Swiss voters rejected an initiative that would have capped the country's population at ten million. It had been championed by the country's largest party, the right wing Swiss People's Party. What would have been one of the sharpest measures any European country had ever taken against the arrival of new immigrants was defeated, and by afternoon authorities announced its failure. Roughly 45 percent voted in favor, 55 percent against, turnout stood at nearly 59 percent, and results from some of the 26 cantons were still pending.

Some called the proposal a Swiss Brexit, a Swiss withdrawal, because it could have endangered the country's close ties with the European Union, those agreements that support economic growth and cultural ties as well as movement across borders. Switzerland is not one of the Union's twenty seven members, yet it is almost completely surrounded by four of them. The people chose to remain part of Europe instead of walling themselves off. Voters had chosen a connected Switzerland, said Justice Minister Beat Jans, an outspoken opponent of the initiative, before the press in Bern. They wanted to continue the partnership with Europe, one built on stability and reliability in geopolitically and economically uncertain times, important for jobs and prosperity and for the country's international cooperation.

The People's Party, which holds the most seats in parliament, has for years fueled opposition to immigration, especially toward workers from neighboring EU countries, and has already brought several such proposals, including the ban on building minarets. This time it called its proposal the Sustainability Initiative and argued that demographic growth was overburdening infrastructure, housing, social systems, natural resources, and Switzerland's way of life. Observers believe the party broadened the proposal beyond immigration itself and tied it to everyday concerns around the kitchen table, housing costs and traffic congestion, to reach moderate voters who otherwise tend to support immigration.

The numbers it appealed to are substantial. In this century, the population has grown by more than a quarter, reaching around 9.1 million at the end of last year, and foreigners now make up nearly one third. The OECD reported in 2024 that 32 percent of residents were born abroad, behind only Luxembourg and Australia among its thirty eight member countries. Yet this immigration comes largely from Europe, with far fewer arrivals from Africa or the Middle East than neighboring countries have experienced.

A yes vote would have obligated the government to limit the population by 2050. At 9.5 million, a threshold the country could reach in the coming decade, the first restrictions would have taken effect, affecting asylum access, family reunification, and residence permits. At ten million, the state would have had to take stronger measures, including potentially withdrawing from the agreement with the Union that allows Swiss citizens and EU citizens to move freely across borders. Before the vote, the government warned that a yes could jeopardize deeper ties with the Union, especially at a moment when Switzerland's trade relationship with the United States has been disrupted by President Trump's tariffs.

The federal government, parliament, and the major business federation EconomieSuisse all opposed the proposal. Opponents warned that it would damage the economy. It would slow the inflow of skilled professionals such as entrepreneurs and engineers who sustain growth and could deprive the country of urgently needed workers in services, especially caregivers, just as a large share of the workforce reaches retirement age. Critics pointed out that immigration has brought labor and expertise into healthcare, finance, pharmaceuticals, and technology. Since Switzerland and the Union eased restrictions on living and working across borders in 2002, the population has grown by 23 percent to 9.1 million, and economic output rose by 24 percent over the same period. Growth and openness increased together.

Support was strongest in rural cantons, while resistance was strongest in the cities and border regions, including the French speaking west. In Geneva, the country's second largest city and home to United Nations institutions and humanitarian organizations, early results showed about two thirds voting no. Polling from the gfs.bern institute had predicted a close race, but the no camp gained momentum in the final days, and the margin turned out larger than most observers expected.

Outside polling stations in the central Paquis district, many voted no out of concern that a yes could damage relations with the Union and from the conviction that growing diversity is a strength. People always bring us something, was heard there again and again. And anyone born in Switzerland to Swiss parents might ask whether more foreigners make them any less Swiss, and answer themselves: not at all. Others decided differently, and often they were people who had once come from far away themselves. Some, who had immigrated decades ago, said after voting that they had nothing against immigration, after all they too had once been strangers, they simply wanted it to be more orderly. The one who came as a stranger and wants order, and the one born here who welcomes strangers, both belong to this country.

The vote emerged from Switzerland's system of direct democracy, in which groups that collect one hundred thousand signatures can put a question before the entire nation. Such votes are usually held four times a year. Most ballots arrive by mail, and in person voting ended Sunday at midday. On the same day, voters also decided on a second proposal that sought to restrict access to conscientious objection to military service. A people that governs itself directly was asked to close its door, and it refused.

The vote came at a moment when frustration over immigration is stirring across Europe while aging societies wrestle with a growing unease toward outsiders. Elsewhere that unease is directed at people from poorer regions of the world, but in Switzerland most foreigners are Europeans. In many other Western European countries, says Stefanie Bailer, a political scientist at the University of Basel, a similar initiative would likely pass. Conditions in Switzerland are better than elsewhere, says Fabio Wasserfallen, political scientist and pollster at the University of Bern, but affordability is still an issue, all of these crises are. Immigration then becomes a gathering point for the feeling that enough is enough and everything is moving too fast while one's own life does not improve.

The chairman of the People's Party, Marcel Dettling, blamed the defeat on the divide between city and countryside in comments to Swiss broadcaster SRF. The cities simply overpower the countryside in shaping public opinion, he said. The government, meanwhile, said it had heard the concerns. Jans stated that the Federal Council takes the consequences of economic and demographic growth seriously and will address the associated challenges directly. The no vote is therefore not a rejection of concern, but a rejection of the wrong answer to it.

For half a century, Swiss voters have wrestled with the question of immigration. Only one such referendum, Against Mass Immigration in 2014, passed narrowly after supporters stirred fears of overpopulation and a growing Muslim population. And although many countries limit immigration, none had ever voted on limiting its own people. Asked to become the first nation in the world to cap its own population, Switzerland said no.

The initiative spoke the language of sustainability and affordability, but beneath the words lay the closing of a door, and the people heard the act beneath the words and rejected it. A country can grow by a quarter without losing itself and be surrounded without feeling besieged. The stranger is not the flood but that thing the teacher meant, what people bring one another. Fear, once named and placed on a ballot, can be answered instead of obeyed. While elsewhere in Europe the door is closing, here a small country, the wealthiest and the most tightly surrounded, decided to remain connected to the world. In a year heavy with walls, it is reason enough for hope that a free people, asked to wall itself in, politely declined.v