This week, an initiative aimed at making it easier to become Swiss cleared the 100,000 signature hurdle required to qualify for a referendum, reported RTS.
Non citizens are largely excluded from voting. Some exceptions allow some to vote at a municipal level. Excluding such a significant part of the population from the democratic process is undemocratic, say vote organisers. Swiss citizens on the other hand get to decide on issues that sometimes specifically affect non-Swiss residents.
Switzerland is one of the most difficult places to gain citizenship. The referendum, for which 104,603 valid signatures were collected, aims to make naturalisation easier in several ways. Currently, there is a 10-year residence requirement, the last 5 of which must have been on a C-permit. The initiative wants this cut to 5 years on any permit. It also wants to remove other requirements, such as evidence of integration and the requirement to not have received welfare in the years preceding an application for citizenship. Other requirements, such as mastering the local language and not having a criminal record, would remain but be applied less strictly. Language requirements would be lowered to a basic level and only crimes that result in long prison sentences would be considered when disqualifying someone from citizenship.
The vote organisers point out that around a quarter of Switzerland’s population are not Swiss. The initiative’s website sets out the arguments of the organisers in more detail.
The initiative is likely to be politically divisive. It has more support from the political left than the political right. It fits with the left’s greater emphasis on a more universal expression care and concern for people, regardless of national boundaries. By contrast, those on the right tend to emphasise care and concern for a nation or integrated group with a greater focus on loyalty and new comers respecting local rules and norms. They are therefore likely to be less open to the initiative’s planned softening of language, integration, welfare and criminal record requirements for fear of social disharmony.
More on this:
RTS article (in French) – Take a 5 minute French test now
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