With its ‘No to 10 million’ initiative, the hard-right Swiss People’s Party (SVP) is seeking to stop Switzerland’s population from reaching 10 million before 2050 - specifically, by capping immigration from the European Union.
One of the reasons the party gives to justify this drastic measure is that Switzerland’s already overstretched key infrastructure – housing, healthcare, public transport, roads, and schools – will not be able to withstand further pressure placed on it by the growing number of immigrants.
Switzerland signed up to the free movement agreement with the EU in 1999 and it came into force in June 2002. This allowed EU nationals to move to Switzerland without restrictions and vice versa. The agreement sparked an increase in the country's population, that critics say the government didn't adequately plan for.
“Switzerland did not anticipate this population growth, and is now paying the price,” Cenni Fajy, head of politics at the economic organisation Centre Patronal, told The Local.
“It underestimated the impact of immigration on infrastructure," said Fajy, who is against the initiative.
The SVP has taken advantage of this oversight to further its own cause.
According to a report in Geneva’s Le Temps newspaper, the initiative “exploits a feeling of widespread saturation, highlighting the difficulty of finding housing and overcrowded transport. “
The campaign has therefore “given the party unprecedented political and popular resonance, with the stated objective of reducing immigration,” the newspaper added.
Why has the Federal Council neglected to prepare for this demographic development?
It was not for lack of data:
According to a report from Avenir-Suisse think tank, which is based on figures from the Federal Statistical Office, “the high levels of immigration in recent years have contributed to a marked rise in Switzerland’s resident population. Since 2000, it has grown by 1.9 million people, with average annual population growth of roughly 75,500 people.”
“The government knew this would happen and had even several scenarios in place since the beginning of the free movement of persons,” Najy pointed out. “So they had time to put forward a strategy to handle this, but they didn’t do it.”
These measures could have, for instance, included easier rules for construction of more residential buildings and granting of more building permits to ease the housing shortage.
That hasn’t happened on a large scale or in a concerted matter, however.
In this sense, “this vote is a wake-up call,” Najy added.
However, not building more infrastructure for a growing population is not just the government’s fault – citizens themselves have failed in the past to back plans to improve infrastructure.
In recent years the Swiss government has wanted to expand six motorways that were most prone to traffic jams and congestion - which the hard-right claim is the result of increased immigration and population growth
But in a referendum held in November 2024, 52 percent of voters voted against the proposal to expand the country's motorways at key congestion points.
The Swiss government is still trying to come up with a plan to reduce motorway congestion in 2026.
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