Zürich on a Sunday morning can feel like the day after Armageddon: so empty, so calm, despite being Switzerland’s biggest city. But then the church bells erupt across the lake basin, and a jogger trots by like a polite deer in aerodynamic sunglasses, and one knows that all is fine in this proudly impeccable place, where little is left to chance and the authorities even track the city’s pigeons with GPS.
Sound good to me…
Swiss people know they are lucky. A highly diversified economy keeps salaries high and income inequality comparatively low. A British friend once remarked that our supermarkets feel like the gourmet hall at Harrods. The state makes business easy. Hiking paths are maintained by armies of volunteers. In a restless world, Switzerland remains a place where one can exhale.
But..? There has to be a ‘but’, right Reader? This is the ‘Guardian’ after all.
The problem with luck, of course, is that one becomes afraid of losing it. But fortune has a tendency to make conservatives of us all, of course. Yet how to preserve what one cherishes? The answer offered by the far-right Swiss People’s Party (SVP) is to freeze the country. On 14 June, Swiss voters will decide whether the permanent population should be capped at 10 million. That threshold could be reached sometime between 2033 and 2041. Polls suggest the vote will be on a knife edge.
And what makes them ‘far right’?
Switzerland’s population has indeed grown rapidly. In the last 25 years, it jumped from 7.2 to 9.1 million, with roughly four-fifths of that increase driven by immigration. The SVP, the country’s largest political party, blames this for rising rents, crowded trains and “density stress”: a reminder to democrats across Europe that a healthy economy won’t stop the far right.
Well, it doesn't stop the conditions that lead to the 'far right' - often nothing of the sort, just ordinary citizens noticing that they are being replaced - so why the surprise?
Should this referendum pass, and should the population then exceed 10 million, Berne would be required to terminate its agreement with the EU on the free movement of people.
Well, now we know. On a 60% turnout, the vote was rejected by 55% to 45%.
If there is one near-uncontested lesson from modern economic history, it is that open societies win. Openness to immigration was long the defining superpower of the US. Japan’s strict immigration policy explains its dismal growth performance, and the fact that its average effective retirement age for men stands at 69.5 years.
History is not especially kind to societies that confuse preservation with paralysis.
It’s not especially kind to those who welcome in the barbarians at the gates, either.
