The Swiss People’s Party (SVP) launches a bold initiative to cap Switzerland’s population at 10 million by 2050.

The SVP is making a new attempt to limit immigration into Switzerland and, if necessary, to terminate the agreement on the free movement of persons. It has submitted its initiative “No 10-million-Switzerland!”.

The SVP submitted 114,600 signatures to the Federal Chancellery in Bern on Wednesday. They were collected within around nine months, half of the collection period.

According to the text of the initiative, a new article on “sustainable population development” is to be added to the Federal Constitution. According to this article, the permanent resident population must not exceed ten million people before 2050. After that, the Federal Council should set a limit based on the birth surplus.

Agreement on the Free Movement of Persons at Stake

If 9.5 million people live in the country before 2050, the Federal Council and Parliament would have to take measures. For example, temporarily admitted persons would no longer be able to obtain a permanent residence or be naturalised.

Switzerland would have to renegotiate international agreements that lead to population growth with regard to exemption or safeguard clauses. If all this is not enough to comply with the limit, Switzerland would ultimately have to terminate the Agreement on the Free Movement of Persons with the EU.

For the SVP, the sustainability initiative is the “answer to the problems caused by immigration”.

These affect more and more people in the country, for example through housing shortages and rising rents, traffic jams, overcrowded trains and buses, crime, stagnating wages, electricity shortages, rising health insurance premiums and indebted social welfare systems and a falling standard of schools.

Protecting the Landscape and Prosperity

According to the SVP, compliance with the limit value is particularly important to protect the environment. The initiative is urgently needed to protect the unique landscape and high quality of life, it writes.

9 million people have lived in Switzerland since 2023, writes the SVP. According to the Federal Statistical Office (FSO), 9,006,664 people were living in the country at the end of June 2023.

In addition to the permanent resident population, this figure also includes the non-permanent foreign resident population, including asylum seekers. The permanent resident population of natives and foreigners included 8,902,308 people.

“Too many and the wrong foreigners are coming today,” party president Marcel Dettling was quoted as saying in the communiqué on the submission of the initiative.

©Keystone/SDA