Switzerland will hold a referendum in June on whether to cap its population at 10 million until 2050 by limiting immigration, sharply illustrating how anti-foreigner sentiment in Europe has hardened since the continent’s migration crisis a decade ago.
If successful, the vote on June 14 would oblige the government to take measures over the next quarter-century to limit immigration to Switzerland, where the population currently stands at roughly 9 million.
Supporters of the initiative say those measures should include making it harder for foreigners to gain permanent residency, once the population passes 9.5 million, and revising the country’s agreement with the European Union that allows for free movement between Switzerland and the rest of the continent. (Switzerland is not part of the E.U.)
Both the government and Parliament voted to oppose the initiative but the referendum has been triggered automatically because more than 100,000 citizens have signed a petition in support of a vote.
The petition was promoted by the Swiss People’s Party, a right-wing party that holds roughly a third of seats in the Swiss Parliament. Campaigners for the referendum said overpopulation had created overburdened Swiss infrastructure, driven up rents and eroded local identity. “Our citizens have had enough,” Thomas Matter, a lawmaker for the Swiss People’s Party, said during a heated debate on Wednesday in Parliament, according to SRF, the Swiss broadcaster.
Opponents of the idea said it would dent the Swiss economy, make it harder to attract foreign workers to fill labor shortages and harm Switzerland’s relationship with the European Union. The population cap would plunge Switzerland “into chaos and isolation,” Jürg Grossen, a centrist political leader, said on Wednesday, according to SRF.
The Swiss government, a seven-member Federal Council that includes members of the Swiss People’s Party, recommended rejecting the initiative in March 2025, saying that the federal council wants to cooperate with the E.U. rather than opposing it. It warned of “far-reaching consequences” including forcing Switzerland to withdraw from several international agreements.
For decades, successive waves of immigration, most of it from other European countries but also from the Middle East and North Africa, have diversified the Swiss population and stoked backlash in some quarters. According to Swiss government statistics, roughly 40 percent of residents aged over 15 are from a migrant background, most of them from European countries.
In 2009, a majority of Swiss voters voted to ban the construction of new mosque minarets, reflecting anxiety about the growth of Islam in a country that, according to government statistics, is majority Christian.
Roughly 48 percent of Swiss support capping the population at 10 million and 41 percent oppose the idea, according to a poll released in December by Leewas, a Swiss-based polling firm, and commissioned by two Swiss media groups.
Governments across Europe have hardened their policies on immigration since the European migration crisis of 2015-16, when more than a million people fleeing wars and poverty arrived on the continent’s shores by boat.
Tatiana Firsova is a translator for The Times in Berlin and also contributes research and reporting.
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