Voters support proposal to make it easier for third-generation immigrants to become citizens, despite opposition from populists

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

Switzerland has voted to make it easier for third-generation immigrants to become citizens, rejecting rightwing politicians’ complaints that the proposed measures would pose a security risk.

Until now, a fast-track route to citizenship was only open to foreigners who had been married to Swiss citizens for more than six years, including those who have never lived in the country.

The outcome of the referendum on Sunday will open up this easier route to the children of secondos (second-generation immigrants), who number about 24,000 in the country of 8 million inhabitants. Nearly 60% of this group are Italian, followed by people from the Balkans and Turkey.

The constitutional amendment does not make naturalisation an automatic process, and applicants will still be required to prove they are aged 25 or under, were born in Switzerland and visited a school there for at least five years, share Swiss cultural values, speak a national language and do not depend on state aid.

After polls closed at midday, public broadcaster SRF announced that 60.4% had voted in favour of the amendment and 39.6% had voted against.

In 2004, the Swiss public emphatically rejected a similar initiative, with only 29% voting in favour.

Activists with links to the populist Swiss People’s party (SVP) had used posters showing a woman in a niqab with the slogan “no unchecked naturalisation” to campaign against the proposal, which was backed by the government and parliament.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A poster at a Zurich train station calls on voters to reject ‘unchecked naturalisation’ ahead of the vote. Photograph: Michael Buholzer/AFP/Getty Images

Switzerland has a history of immigration from Germany, Italy and the Balkans, and lists more official languages than any other country in Europe.

But strict naturalisation rules mean one-quarter of the population is listed as foreign, a relatively high rate in comparison with other countries that make it easier for the children and grandchildren of immigrants to become citizens.

The vote on facilitated naturalisation was one of four reserved annually for plebiscites on subjects that affect federal as well as local laws and institutions.

Initial debate on the proposal had nothing to do with religion, according to Sophie Guignard of the Institute of Political Science at the University of Bern. But then the SVP, a party repeatedly accused of demonising Islam, focused on the risks of more Muslims becoming citizens and the possible “loss of Swiss values”, she said.

Central to that effort was the widely distributed poster with the woman in the niqab. The SVP was not officially responsible for the poster, which was commissioned by the Committee Against Facilitated Citizenship, but the group has several SVP members in leadership positions.

Jean-Luc Addor, the co-chair of the committee and an SVP lawmaker, had urged people to reject the proposal on the grounds that soon, most third-generation immigrants would not be of European origin.

“In one or two generations, who will these third-generation foreigners be?” he wrote in an opinion piece on the SVP website. “They will be born of the Arab spring, they will be from sub-Saharan Africa, the Horn of Africa, Syria or Afghanistan.”

Guignard said mainstream politicians and journalists viewed the poster as “a violent attack against Muslims”.

Voters also rejected plans to overhaul the country’s corporate tax system, dealing a blow to the government’s attempts to abolish ultra-low tax rates for thousands of multinational companies without causing a mass exodus.

While most people in Switzerland recognised that reforms were necessary to prevent the country from becoming a low-tax pariah, the proposed measures to help companies offset the loss of their tax breaks had created deep divisions.

Provisional results on Sunday showed that just over 59% of voters opposed the plans, which the Swiss political and business elite embraced under international pressure.

The finance minister, Ueli Maurer, said the government needed time to analyse what business leaders were calling a dangerous legal limbo.

“It will not be possible to find a solution overnight,” he told a press conference in Bern, saying it could take 12 months to come up with a new plan and years more to implement this.