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Swiss voters reject EU immigration curbs, exit polls suggest Swiss voters reject EU immigration curbs, exit polls suggest
(about 3 hours later)
Broadcaster says projection based on partial results shows motion was defeated 63%-37%Broadcaster says projection based on partial results shows motion was defeated 63%-37%
Swiss voters have overwhelmingly rejected a rightwing party’s attempt to scrap a pact allowing the free movement of people from the European Union, according to a projection of results by the broadcaster SRF on Sunday. Swiss voters are on course to resoundingly reject an attempt to tear up the country’s agreement with the EU on the free movement of people, in a referendum that echoed the Brexit vote.
The Swiss People’s party (SVP) had called a referendum on the EU agreement – a vote that was considered an important test of attitudes towards foreigners who make up a quarter of the population. The largest party in the Swiss parliament, the rightwing, anti-immigration Swiss People’s party (SVP), called the referendum, arguing that the country must be allowed to set its own limit on the number of foreigners coming in to work.
The broadcaster said its projection, based on partial results from Sunday’s plebiscite, showed the motion was defeated 63%-37%. However, near-final results showed the initiative – opposed by government, parliament, unions, employer organisations and all other political parties because it would put Switzerland’s overall relations with the EU in jeopardy – was on course to be rejected by about 62% of voters, and supported by 38%.
The SVP – the biggest party in parliament – has pushed to take back control of immigration, echoing some of the arguments pro-Brexit politicians used in the run-up to Britain’s exit from the EU. Non-nationals account for roughly a quarter of Switzerland’s 8.6 million inhabitants and the SVP argues the country is facing “uncontrolled and excessive immigration” that will drive up unemployment among Swiss nationals, increase housing costs and overwhelm transport and public services.
It has painted a gloomy picture of young foreigners supplanting older Swiss, housing getting more expensive, schools and transport getting overcrowded and construction running wild. Opponents said that ending the two-decade-old free movement accord with the surrounding EU, of which Switzerland is not a member, would rob the country of skilled workers but above all endanger the complex but vital network of more than 120 bilateral treaties that the country has signed with the bloc.
Opponents said the plan would have robbed business of skilled workers and torpedoed accords that enhance non-EU member Switzerland’s access to the EU single market. Besides allowing EU nationals to work in Switzerland and vice versa, the treaties include agreements on trade, transport and research in force since 2002 which, if free movement was terminated, would also automatically cease to apply under a so-called “guillotine clause”. The Swiss justice minister, Karin Keller-Sutter, said a no vote would have been be “worse than Brexit”.
Under Switzerland’s system of direct democracy, the referendum could have forced the government to annul the EU agreement if negotiations did not produce a deal on ending the pact voluntarily, a very unlikely outcome. The SVP’s president, Marco Chiesa, said the party was disappointed but would “continue to fight for the country and take back control of immigration”. Paolo Gentiloni, the EU economy commissioner, described the result as “a beautiful Sunday for democracy and Europe”.
A “guillotine clause” would have also meant that ending free movement would have toppled other bilateral pacts on land and air transport, procurement, technical barriers to trade, and research. Under Switzerland’s system of direct democracy, the referendum could have forced the government to annul the free movement agreement unilaterally if negotiations with Brussels did not produce a deal on ending the accord – an outcome the EU has repeatedly said it would not permit.
About 68% of the 2.1 million foreigners living in Switzerland in 2019 were citizens of the EU, as well as Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein – the other members of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), which includes Switzerland. The SVP has tried before to limit free movement, narrowly winning a 2014 referendum demanding immigration quotas. To the party’s fury, the initiative was subsequently watered down, promoting a degree of local preference in some sectors but crucially imposing no fixed limits on EU immigration.
The pact also lets Swiss move freely in the EU – more than 450,000 of them live in the bloc. The EU has not shifted its stance since that referendum, insisting that any rejection of the principle of free movement by Switzerland would result in the country being excluded from the single market.
Once the referendum result is confirmed, the government can turn next to its biggest foreign policy issue: a stalled treaty meant to cement ties with the EU but which critics say infringes too much on Swiss sovereignty. Among other issues on the ballot on Sunday, voters backed introducing paid paternity leave in a move seen as a major change for Switzerland, which lags behind much of Europe on the question of parental leave.
The country, which did not grant women the right to vote until 1971 and which first introduced 14 weeks of paid maternity leave in 2005, will now offer new fathers the chance to take two weeks paid leave after the birth of a child on 80% of their salary up to a ceiling of SFr 196 (£165) a day.