Comment by KellyCriterion

4 months ago

Why shouldnt they be allowed to make a cap at 10M?

Because it's very likely against the Swiss constitution

  • "Against the Swiss constitution" doesn't really make sense here. This is a popular initiative; if accepted, it amends the Swiss constitution. Here's the text: https://www.bk.admin.ch/ch/d/pore/vi/vis555t.html

    The only way you could argue an initiative is "against the Swiss constitution" in my opinion would be if it runs afoul of the rules: https://www.fedlex.admin.ch/eli/cc/1999/404/en#tit_4/chap_2

    Unless you want to argue that this violates the mandatory provisions of international law, I don't think you have an argument. The text of the amendment specifically clarifies that any of the actions it mandates on parliament have to adhere to the mandatory provisions of international law, so I don't think that's an avenue you can pursue.

    • You are right, I forgot how xenophobic my native Switzerland is. Unlike e.g. Germany, they don't really have something in the constitution regarding helping immigrants.

      However, they do have Art. 7 (human dignity) and Art. 8 (equality before law), which applies not only to Swiss citizens, but to all humans. I don't know about you, but I would think that excluding refugees who need help because we already have 10M people in the country would be against their human dignity.

  • Please elaborate and send me the link to the relevant www.parlament.ch docs :)

    • Let’s pretend it’s within the constitution. How are they going to enforce this?

      For baby 10M+1 are they going to tell a Swiss woman that she can’t have a baby?

      In any case, this is definitely not conformant to the treaty that the Swiss have with the EU around rights of free movement.

      4 replies →

Switzerland is a state. Talking about what they're "allowed" to do is just meaningless.

But, it does seem like a terrible place to live. I fear for the immigrants who form the basis of the economy.

  • I don't think immigrants make up the basis of the Swiss economy. Looking at their demographic data[1], it was pretty strongly European dominated for a very long time, and is still ~80% European.

    When people talk about immigrants in this context, I don't think they mean people from the US, but lower socioeconomic asylum-seekers and refugees etc. from the middle-east.

    It definitely seems their economy was built on European labor, which I believe the vast majority of European countries were.

    [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Switzerland#Pe...

    • It depends somewhat on the specific campaign but generally in right-leaning Swiss politics, "immigrant" includes Europeans as well. I think that's definitely the case in this initiative since the text of the initiative requires ending freedom of movement with the EU.

      They really don't like asylum seekers either though. Several of their arguments reference asylum seekers specifically: https://nachhaltigkeitsinitiative.ch/argumente/