On Wednesday, the Swiss People's Party (UDC) submitted a petition with the required 100,000 signatures for the government to call a referendum to ensure the permanent resident population doesn't exceed 10 million people by 2050.
According to Remix, the UDC gathered 114,600 signatures in nine months, which required the government to hold a vote on a proposal that forces them to take urgent measures the moment the population exceeds 9.5 million.
Among the actions that the government could take would be suspending immigrants' ability to obtain permanent residence in the country or gain citizenship.
In a post on Facebook, UDC Leader Marco Chiesa said the proposal "serves to preserve our values: independence, direct democracy, sovereignty, and freedom." He added, "It is also a policy in the municipalities that guarantees the safety, services, and well-being of all of us.”
In a statement about the influx of immigrants into the country, the UDC National Councilor and Group Chairman Thomas Aeschi said, "Since 2023, for the first time, more than 9 million people have been living in our country." He noted, "Last year, an additional 98,851 people immigrated to our country. Added to this are more than 30,000 asylum seekers.”
The party told the outlet that immigration was the cause for "housing shortages and rising rents, traffic jams on the roads, crowded trains and buses, falling standards of schools, increasing violence and crime, electricity shortages, income stagnating per capita, ever-higher health insurance premiums, indebted social services, and increased pressure on the beauty of the landscape and the preservation of nature.”
In Switzerland, the citizens can call for a vote on any issue as long as they are able to get 100,000 people to sign a petition within an 18-month timeframe. According to the European Conservative, securing the signatures in nine months was the fastest it had ever been done.
The country currently has a population of 8.7 million people and receives 30,000 asylum applications a year.
