To receive a Swiss passport you must answer questions on a federal, cantonal, and municipal level. Most questions that trip people up tend to be on cantonal and especially municipal tests – but more about this later.
First, let’s look at the ‘trickiest’ questions on the federal test.
Here are three examples that many applicants get wrong.
Is Bern the capital of Switzerland?
You may think so, but actually no.
It may very well be a matter of semantics, but the correct answer is that Bern has a title of ‘federal city’ because, for historic reasons (which would be good for you to know as well), Switzerland doesn’t have a legally designated capital.
You can read more about it via the link below.
READ MORE: Why is Bern not the 'capital' of Switzerland?
How many full cantons are there in Switzerland?
Without analysing this question, you will probably say 26, but that is not the right answer.
It’s true that Switzerland is made of 26 cantons, but only 20 of them are full, while six are, due to historical splits, ‘half’ cantons: Basel-City and Basel-Country, Appenzell Innerrhoden and Appenzell Ausserrhoden, as well Obwalden and Nidwalden.
And here’s another potential pitfall on the federal naturalisation exam, this one referring to Switzerland’s unique system of direct democracy: What is the difference between a referendum and initiative?
A simple answer is that an initiative is used to amend the Constitution (with 100,000 signatures), while a referendum is used to challenge a law passed by the Parliament (with 50,000 signatures).
Similarly, some questions are phrased in an interesting way, which could make you think twice before you answer. For instance:
To vote in Switzerland, a person
a) must be a Swiss citizen
b) must own a computer
c) must be born in Switzerland
d) must pay more taxes.
You can immediately dismiss the ‘b’ and ‘d’ options, which are clearly meant to trip you.
Now, you could consider ‘c’ as the correct answer, as such is the case in most countries.
But in Switzerland, citizenship is not a ‘birthright’:
READ MORE: What legal status do children born to foreign parents in Switzerland get?
So the correct answer here is 'a'.
Next: The cantonal exam
Here, the knowledge expected of a candidate is much more focused on their canton of residence.
They must, for instance, know what the population of the canton is, how many municipalities it has, what social and other services are available to residents, what cultural institutions are on its territory, and be able to recognise its flag, among other questions.
It’s good to be well prepared because the canton’s migration authorities are the ones who decide whether to deny you naturalisation, or send your documents on to your local municipality for the final verdict.
And this is where your biggest challenge awaits you.
This is due to the nature of Switzerland’s political and direct democracy structure, where people at the grass-roots level wield more power (at least in certain areas of life) than politicians sitting in Bern.
Another reason is that it is believed the local residents are in a better position to ‘judge’ whether foreigners living in their midst are integrated in the community well enough to become Swiss — something that neither the cantonal nor federal authorities can ascertain.
So even if a person meets all the requirements set on cantonal and federal levels, each municipality autonomously decides on the naturalisation applications.
Under law, each commune can make its own rules on naturalisation, within the bounds of cantonal and federal legislation.
This is to say the communes play a key role in accepting or rejecting applications for Swiss citizenship, which — as a vast number of cases have shown — poses a risk of arbitrary or discriminatory decisions based on personal, rather than objective and unbiased, criteria.
And it at this level where many otherwise eligible candidates fail
The reason is that many ‘naturalisation commissions’ in small towns often resort to arbitrary questions.
In one of the most publicised examples of a strange and bizarre citizenship question, an Italian man - who had lived in Switzerland for 30 years and had a prominent local ice cream business - was knocked back at least in part because he didn’t know enough about the local zoo.
In particular, the man - who lived in the Swiss town of Arth - wasn’t aware that the bears and the wolves in the zoo lived together in the same enclosure, leading to the denial of his citizenship request.
But that’s not all. The following people had their applications cancelled as well:
An American professor who has lived in Switzerland for 40 years could not name six neighbouring villages, so was denied citizenship.
An applicant in Aargau forgot the name of the nearest mountain, as well as the local butcher and baker.
Another candidate called the traditional Alpine horn a ‘Schwizerhorn’ instead of ‘Alphorn’.
READ MORE: New app helps applicants prepare for Swiss citizenship exam
Did you get any strange questions on your naturalisation exam? Share them in the Comments section below.
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