Sunday, June 14, Swiss citizens will vote on one of the most controversial initiatives in recent years: the so-called “Initiative for Sustainability”, known as the “No to a Switzerland of 10 Million” initiative. Driven by the Swiss People's Party (UDC/SVP), the main national-conservative right-wing party, the proposal aims to prevent the permanent resident population from exceeding ten million inhabitants before the year 2050. If the population reaches 9.5 million, the federal government would have to adopt restrictions on migration and, if these were insufficient, renegotiate existing international agreements that favor demographic growth, including the free movement of people agreement with the European Union. Since this agreement came into force in 2002, the Swiss population has grown from 7.3 million to over 9.1 million. Today, more than 27% of residents are foreigners —one of the highest proportions in Europe—, mostly from EU countries.
Putting aside that the promoters of the initiative in Switzerland are right-wing populist sectors, the public debate generated by the referendum is important. Polls indicate that many citizens who do not sympathize with the UDC/SVP are considering voting in favor of the initiative for reasons unrelated to xenophobic inclinations: they argue that population growth creates excessive pressure on housing, transport, and public infrastructure. Opponents, on the other hand, warn that limiting immigration could weaken the economy, exacerbate labor shortages in strategic sectors, and jeopardize Switzerland's privileged relationship with the EU. According to the latest polls, the initiative will be rejected, but by a relatively narrow margin: 52% of voters declare themselves against the proposal; 45%, in favor.
This debate reminded me of a recent article by Miquel Puig, which posed a question as simple as it was provocative. If demographic growth will likely be the phenomenon that most transforms Catalonia in the coming decades, why can't citizens democratically express themselves on what population horizon they consider desirable? If the Swiss can vote on ten million, why couldn't Catalonia, at least, open a similar reflection?
in the reflections of my colleague at the Geneva Graduate Institute Cédric Tille
The first difference between Switzerland and Catalonia is institutional. Switzerland is not part of the EU and the free movement of people derives from a bilateral agreement that, at least legally, could be rejected. Catalonia is part of a member state of the Union and is integrated into an area of free movement that it cannot unilaterally modify. The question posed by the Swiss is possible because they have sovereign powers in this area. Catalonia, no.
The second difference is economic and strongly appears in the reflections of my colleague at the Geneva Graduate Institute Cédric Tille, professor of international economics. Tille acknowledges that the tensions regarding housing, transport, and infrastructure are very real. Immigration has contributed to increasing the population at a much higher rate than Switzerland had historically known. But he adds an important observation: the problem is not that Switzerland lacks the resources to expand infrastructure, but that it is built too slowly. Opposition from local governments, administrative resources, and a certain not in my backyard culture hinder the construction of housing and facilities like schools at the pace required by demographic growth. I myself have seen how different decisions via referendum have prevented the expansion of the highway and other roads in my town.
As Tille acknowledges, the prospect of a Switzerland with between ten and eleven million inhabitants raises legitimate questions about the capacity of a small country to continue absorbing new residents without profoundly altering its territorial balance and sociocultural cohesion. The debate about infrastructure is a good example. Swiss railways are a world reference in punctuality and efficiency. But precisely because the system works so well, any saturation is perceived with particular sensitivity. The question is not whether the system is collapsed, but whether it will be capable of offering the same standards in a context of sustained growth.
The third difference with Catalonia is probably the most sensitive. Switzerland combines a relatively open immigration policy with much more solid integration instruments than those that exist in our country. Access to permanent residence permits and nationality requires linguistic and civic knowledge. The cantons control their educational systems, and territorial languages occupy a central position in the integration of new residents. In Catalonia, we do not have immigration competencies that establish specific linguistic requirements, and in schools, the immersive model is at risk.
Switzerland is neither the cosmopolitan paradise that some imagine nor the closed society that its critics describe. It is a democracy that tries to manage tensions arising from its success by giving people a voice through instruments of direct democracy. However, as in the case of Brexit, these are existential decisions that many are not clear about needing to be made in polarizing debates with an enormous impact for future generations.
As a Catalan resident in Switzerland, the debates these days seem familiar to me. Many Catalans dream of infrastructures that function with Swiss punctuality, institutions capable of long-term planning, and an administration that generates high levels of citizen trust. But Sunday's vote also reminds us that even societies that best manage economic success and diversity continue to ask themselves where the limits are to avoid putting their well-being and social coexistence with internal diversity at risk.
