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Re:Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M by amunozo on Monday June 08, 2026 @03:28PM (#48450363)
Way worse than Brexit, as Switzerland is much smaller, landlocked and had no colonies or anything like that. This would be a suicide for the country. Just populism to mobilize the electorate.
Re:Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M by transcriptase on Monday June 08, 2026 @03:32PM (#48450438)
Makes far more sense than the “population must increase forever” pyramid scheme the rest of the West is running. Check out Canada for a look at what happens when you try to juice GDP via population growth at the expense of literally everything else.
Re:Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M by ryandrake on Monday June 08, 2026 @03:39PM (#48450596)
What happens, specifically? Not that I'm a fan of "population increase forever" but what's wrong with Canada?
Re:Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M by alephnerd on Monday June 08, 2026 @04:00PM (#48450996)
A lot of people on the internet blame Canada's malaise on their historically lax immigration stance.

While to a certain extent it is true (eg. Indian, Chinese, Viet organized crime took advantage of it to leave crackdowns during the 2010s and 2020s and degree mills abounded), it's also overstated.

Canada's economy was always a resource and construction driven economy, and the blocking of the Keystone Pipeline project (thus making Canadian ONG less competitive than American sourced ONG), the rise of America as a net ONG producer (thanks Obama/Biden and Perry), the blocking of the GasLink LNG project (blocked the ability for Canada to build marketshare in Asia), and China's CCDI starting to crackdown on foreign assets of Chinese nationals as well as the Zero COVID era economic malaise (negatively impacted Chinese FDI) all IMO played a much larger role than immigration.

At the end of the day, Canada in the 2010s was unprepared for America becoming a major energy exporter by the 2020s, and was unable to successfully build infra to make Canadian ONG cost competitive against American ONG nor the ability to sell outside of North America. THIS is the legacy of the Trudeau administration.

Re:Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M by kens on Monday June 08, 2026 @04:33PM (#48451530)
Serious question: what is ONG? I assume it's like LNG (liquefied natural gas), but after multiple searches, all I can come up with is Oklahoma Natural Gas, NGO in French, and On God.
Re:Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M by alephnerd on Monday June 08, 2026 @04:36PM (#48451581)
It's the abbreviation for Oil and Natural Gas sector.
Re:Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M by maxglute on Monday June 08, 2026 @04:29PM (#48451467)
Pop increase faster than housing / good jobs. The usual. Tried to juice economy post covid with MASS Indian immigration, for reference peak "Chinese" immigration was post HK handover was 60k, settled at 40k per year, lots of Chinese wealth transfer to Canada. Indian immigration went from 60k per year to over 140k, outrageous amount. Bluntly, most of west including Canada gets second tier immigrants, all the good opportunities in US, Canada doesn't get to retain tier1 talent, and Indian immigrants are in aggregate less wealthy. The entire point of brain drain is to get best brains, or in lieu get wealth. Canada got neither. This not knock on Indian immigrants, who work just as hard as every other, just acknowledging value proposition is not the same.

The broader context is Canada is on paper a small pop country with sufficiently alright governance to get per capita rich selling shit from ground. The more people you have have, the less that model works, and frankly Canada at 25m in the 00s already passed that point (vs 6m Norway). It doesn't help that... foreign influence have stagnated Canadian fossil/extractive industries development. Trudeau thought it was good idea to aim for 100m Canadians by 2100 (century initiative)... which on paper makes sense - only way for Canada to compete/influence vs US is heft, but of course that means a lot of brown and eventually black people fighting for housing and opportunities in the interregnum.

Unsurprisingly, broken housing market = no one likes that interregnum.

Re:Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M by panick21_ on Tuesday June 09, 2026 @07:05AM (#48459440)
Canada is really bad with housing and inftrastructure. Blame immigrants not crack head white politicans who see bike lanes as the devil take car and oil money whole worshiping Trump and far right parties all over the world.

Yeah immigrants are really the problem.

Re:Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M by maxglute on Tuesday June 09, 2026 @02:18PM (#48465202)
Immigrants not worth their economic value are the problem. That's not blaming "immigrants" but "immigration policy", which like housing policy - failure of politicians. But ultimately immigrants, who are not citizens are the going to be the scape goat. And reducing/denying/removing immigrants is short term more feasible than solving political sclerosis that require longer timelines, if can be fixed by system at all.
Re:Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M by panick21_ on Tuesday June 09, 2026 @03:13PM (#48466143)
The overwhelming majority of immigrants are worth it and long term they all are because they have more kids. Every immigrant who comes grown up with minimal education is a huge benefit.

Also its acceptable to have some immigrants who are not 'worth it', because it is something that is literally good to do, you are improving peoples lives.

> who are not citizens are the going to be the scape goat

Mostly because of far right misinformation.

> And reducing/denying/removing immigrants is short term more feasible than solving political sclerosis that require longer timelines, if can be fixed by system at all.

Its a falls believe that removing immigrants is somehow easy. Its not, its politically as hard as building new transit.

The difference is that building new transit is going to be great for everybody, specially Canadians who already own property or just live in the region, while focusing on removing immigrants will hurt everybody on net.

So the right solution is to focus on solving the fundamental problems you have no matter if immigrants or not.

Re:Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M by maxglute on Wednesday June 10, 2026 @02:49AM (#48472398)
>overwhelming majority of immigrants are worth it

Unlikely with Canadian exploding diploma mill immigration patterns post covid i.e. the 100k increase in Indians. That's not some, i.e. a few 1000 refugee/asylum charity to make feel good headlines. That's structurally unsustainable. Hence new cap reduction and strict field of study rules. Reality is Canada was importing fuckload of low skill hoping to juice economy short term with international tuition injections, but having students fill service and gig jobs driving up rent / suppressing wages / straining infra / services is bad short term politics and bad long term ROI. These generally aren't turnkey high skilled immigrants that boost economy long term. These aren't even wealthy economic immigrants dump $$$ into economy, these are bluntly marginal immigrants from poor households that goes into debt/leverage and have to take low end jobs with high remittance culture to payback - the give/take ratio is not great. They are no where nearly as "worth it" as a rich PRC international students dropping $$$ into economy and trying to capital flight $$$ into Canadian economy. And removing them is easy... a few signatures to cap study permits, change crs and pgwp requirements, already down ~70% from peak, much easier to building. Of course building is great for everybody, but Canada ain't building.

The right solution is move back to sustainable high-value immigration patterns. 60k to 160k Indians is unprecedented. Like 2nd/3rd largest cohort is PRC and PH at ~40k. 160k per year from any country is stupid policy, only justifiable if the plan is basically to steal their tuition and kick them out of the country after making PR/citizenship harder, i.e. Canada bait-switch (scammed) a bunch of Indian villagers pooling their limited resources together, and it's looking likely that's how this saga will end. Again, it's not Indian immigrants fault, but they don't vote so they're the one's whose going to get screwed because bad policy screwed Canadians who vote.

Re:Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M by Stevvo on Monday June 08, 2026 @04:03PM (#48451052)
The data/facts disagree with you. In a low birth rate society a constant influx of new tax payers is required. Without it you end up with decades of stagnation like Japan.
Re:Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M by transcriptase on Monday June 08, 2026 @10:22PM (#48455451)
Why shouldn’t the need for tax revenue go down as the population it’s intended to serve declines?
Re:Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M by aprilthird2021 on Monday June 08, 2026 @11:18PM (#48455904)
2 main reasons

1) Populations are their most expensive at their oldest age and each subsequent generation is smaller and needs to pay for an old generation larger than their own

2) infrastructure and many of the things a government provides is not scalable down and up. A road is not (much) cheaper to maintain because less people drive on it

Re:Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M by amunozo on Tuesday June 09, 2026 @01:49AM (#48457012)
One word: ageing. Population declines but also age, so working population declines much more than total population.
Re:Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M by s1artibartfast on Tuesday June 09, 2026 @12:00PM (#48462838)
This sounds like a strong argument for having a stable cap. It's not a total immigration ban and would freeze population at a steady state. This makes all of the boom and bust problems easier, not worse
Re:Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M by metalman on Monday June 08, 2026 @04:16PM (#48451245)
Here in Nova Scotia, Canada, mass imigration is driving the most intense building of everything boom, ever. And it just went up a notch. Plenty of Swiss imigrants as well.
Re:Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M by gambiting on Monday June 08, 2026 @04:00PM (#48450995)
Population of most European countries is actually decreasing year on year:

https://www.worldometers.info/population/countries-in-europe...

But either way, European nations are nearly all screwed - their expenditure on pensions and healthcare will quadruple in the coming decades as the demographics change heavily towards elderly peple.

Re:Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M by bombcar on Monday June 08, 2026 @04:03PM (#48451041)
Pensions are a bit harder to get out of, but healthcare is easy. You never deny, just delay.
Re:Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M by throwaway85825 on Monday June 08, 2026 @05:48PM (#48452697)
Or in Canada, MAID.
Re:Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M by PowerElectronix on Monday June 08, 2026 @04:21PM (#48451328)
No country is running a "population must increase forever". You only hear that when the public pensions are discussed because they are unsustainable. The argument is not " population must increase", it's more "human labor is the most critical resource and we must get as much as we can".

You can fear the results of runaway immigration in the short term, like cultural clashes, organized crime and brown people in your neighborhood. But you can't deny the results on the long term when you allow talent to go to your country and end up with more nobel laureates of New Zealand origin than New Zealand.

Re:Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M by seanmcdirmid on Monday June 08, 2026 @03:31PM (#48450424)
This is only about the Schengen, Switzerland is not a part of the EU, and even before the Schengen, the borders between the EU and Switzerland weren't heavily controlled. I got in trouble at German airport for going by train from Lausanne to Milan, and then plane to Berlin, I had no entry step into the Schengen because they didn't bother doing that on trains (pre-Schengen).

Everything else is negotiated under separate treaties. This would revert Switzerland to pre-Schengen, which is sad, but it wouldn't be suicidal.

Re:Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M by Yizahi on Monday June 08, 2026 @04:14PM (#48451210)
I wish Schengen would one day apply mirror visit policies, to make countries taste their own poison. Like - "Ok UK, you want out of Schengen? Fine. You will now pay 162 EUR for a single one time entry per person. Thank you very much for your interest.". Or "Oh, you want a 5 year multi entry visa, which EU can grant for like 30-60 EUR? It will be reciprocal 1086 EUR for you. It was a pleasure of doing business with you, sir.".

And do the same with every other renegade, including reciprocal mirror tariffs and stuff. Want to play games? Let's play them together.

Re:Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M by tonfa on Monday June 08, 2026 @03:35PM (#48450505)
> This is only about the Schengen, Switzerland is not a part of the EU

Not really, the bilateral are a package and the EU doesn't want CH to pick and chose.

If freedom of movement stops, a whole lot of thing also stop. It happened the last time SVP got something similar voted on (introduction of quota for foreign immigration), on a smaller scale (erasmus and horizon which are the higher ed and academic research collaboration, CH was a heavy recipient of the latter).

Re:Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M by JumpCrisscross on Monday June 08, 2026 @03:38PM (#48450560)
> the bilateral are a package and the EU doesn't want CH to pick and chose

It really depends who is in power where when and if the 10mm limit is crossed. If there is a conservative in Paris or Berlin, chances are Switzerland can simply abrogate Schengen.

Re:Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M by jltsiren on Monday June 08, 2026 @04:14PM (#48451212)
Schengen is a minor treaty about border controls. The actual issue are the Bilateral I agreements, which link free movement with many aspects of free trade. If Switzerland drops that, it needs new free trade agreements, which take many years to negotiate and ratify.
Re:Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M by tonfa on Monday June 08, 2026 @03:49PM (#48450787)
Unlike UK, the impact to the EU is minimum and Switzerland doesn't have leverage (if the EU still stands).

Of course if you have EU dismantlers in power anyway in FR/DE, they'll just be happy to sabotage.

Re:Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M by JumpCrisscross on Monday June 08, 2026 @03:53PM (#48450856)
> unless you're Swiss, your opinion is irrelevant

I think we do bilaterally with our trading partners/border friends.

Freedom of movement across the EU has created a massive backlash. Politicians can keep ignoring that. Or they can modify Schengen, perhaps by admitting that FOM makes immigration decisions a collective one. (Germany letting in a massive wave of immigration means a massive wave of immigrants for everyone.)

Re:Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M by izacus on Monday June 08, 2026 @05:49PM (#48452711)
Where do you pull this kind of nonsense from? This didn't work out for much bigger UK and UK isn't sorrounded by EU.
Re:Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M by mike_hearn on Tuesday June 09, 2026 @05:35AM (#48458772)
How did it not work out? A lot of things the EU claimed were red lines ended up being crossed. Look at the Horizon programme. Supposedly an inviolable "privilege" tied to FoM, the UK called the EU's bluff, left, and UK is now back in Horizon anyway.
Re:Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M by izacus on Wednesday June 10, 2026 @02:47AM (#48472377)
Perhaps with the fact that immigration hasn't stopped, the economy is a much bigger trash fire than any of EUs and the fact that people still don't seem to be happy and keep pushing even worse laws.
Re:Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M by mahkeiro on Monday June 08, 2026 @05:38PM (#48452535)
Switzerland was part of Schengen from day one… New EU Entry exit/system will put CH in the same boat as UK with mandatory control at the border with scan of face and finger print + travel authorization. Switzerland would be completely locked. But some people are going to be happy as it would mean no more grocery shopping on the other side of the border.
Re:Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M by unbeli on Monday June 08, 2026 @09:52PM (#48455195)
> Switzerland was part of Schengen from day one

I say! That's news to most.

Re:Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M by seanmcdirmid on Monday June 08, 2026 @10:52PM (#48455694)
Switzerland officially joined the Schengen Area on December 12, 2008

March 26, 1995 (The Implementation): The Schengen Area officially became effective on this date. Internal border controls were finally lifted among seven member states.

Re:Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M by dnautics on Monday June 08, 2026 @03:33PM (#48450462)
how did they ever survive in the pre-EU/schengen/EEC era?
Re:Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M by ceejayoz on Monday June 08, 2026 @03:42PM (#48450642)
Divorce is harder than a wedding.
Re:Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M by skywhopper on Monday June 08, 2026 @04:09PM (#48451122)
Their neighbors were similarly restrictive back then, and the European economy was not as integrated.
Re:Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M by joe_mamba on Monday June 08, 2026 @04:19PM (#48451293)
> the European economy was not as integrated

And somehow despite this, the European economies had the biggest share of global GDP back then.

And now they're more integrated than ever, have more immigration than ever, have created the EU as their "big daddy" leader and enforcer, and yet they can't stop losing share of GDP to the rest of the world. Stange. Maybe they should hit the brakes for a second and reflect that their current course of action isn't the cure but the disease.

Like ASML, Concorde and Airbus were created via European cooperation when EU was a nascent baby and present day Schengen freedom of movement did not exist. Now we EU bureaucracy, open borders unlimited freedom of movement but haven't created the next Airbus or ASML. Food for thought that the EU is tackling the wrong issues on its economic stagnation. Maybe the solution is not more EU, but less EU.

Re:Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M by jltsiren on Monday June 08, 2026 @06:32PM (#48453286)
The root issue was already visible in the 1970s. When birth rates drop below replacement, you eventually end up with a society with more old people than kids. And when you have a society like that, you naturally invest more in maintaining the society and less in building the future.
Re:Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M by j_maffe on Monday June 08, 2026 @06:43PM (#48453412)
> Maybe the solution is not more EU, but less EU.

You haven't given a single reason why that would be beneficial.

Re:Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M by antonvs on Tuesday June 09, 2026 @04:03AM (#48458074)
It’s a variation on the politician’s syllogism: we must do something different, this is something different, therefore we must do this.
Re:Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M by joe_mamba on Tuesday June 09, 2026 @01:39PM (#48464517)
Because I'd rather have a change, any change, is better than the current managed decline lead by the EU overseer.
Re:Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M by panick21_ on Tuesday June 09, 2026 @07:11AM (#48459494)
Yeah lets compare the world now to a world pre rise of Japan, East Asia and China. Im sure less European imtegration would have resulted in Euro dominance continuing.

I agree more bilateral agreements are good but having even more fragmented markets is not and was not a long term model of sucess.

It was simply easier back then, less competition.

Re:Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M by greenavocado on Monday June 08, 2026 @03:30PM (#48450395)
Imagine how crazy it is to call a population cap an act of "suicide."
Re:Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M by skywhopper on Monday June 08, 2026 @04:09PM (#48451137)
At the very least it’s an infringement of human rights.
Re:Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M by joe_mamba on Monday June 08, 2026 @04:20PM (#48451310)
Yes, because in the human rights bill it says that everyone in the world has the right to go live in Switzerland.
Re:Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M by azan_ on Monday June 08, 2026 @04:23PM (#48451355)
Is being able to move to Switzerland really an universal human right?
Re:Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M by throw-the-towel on Monday June 08, 2026 @04:35PM (#48451567)
Tell that to the EU.
Re:Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M by ceejayoz on Monday June 08, 2026 @03:30PM (#48450416)
Imagine how crazy it is to think "Switzerland out of Schengen" isn't.

It's a small, landlocked country, surrounded on all sides by Schengen nations, that until recently delegated air defense to the EU outside of their air force's office hours. https://www.theguardian.com/world/shortcuts/2014/feb/19/swis...

Re:Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M by seanmcdirmid on Monday June 08, 2026 @03:31PM (#48450433)
Plenty of us remember when Switzerland was not in the Schengen though. This might be good for Americans, who haven't been able to get working visas in Switzerland since EU countries now have priority. But otherwise, I don't see much changing beyond border procedures.
Re:Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M by ceejayoz on Monday June 08, 2026 @03:32PM (#48450449)
As with Brexit, leaving is likely to result in a much stricter regime than the status quo from before the establishment of the system.
Re:Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M by seanmcdirmid on Monday June 08, 2026 @03:33PM (#48450472)
True, maybe. It is really hard to say. I'm not pro leaving in any sense (beyond being an American who used to work in Switzerland and wouldn't have that chance today because of the Schengen).
Re:Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M by luke5441 on Monday June 08, 2026 @04:02PM (#48451019)
Most of the downsides would be on the goods side. Swiss companies would loose market access and the chance of "better" trade agreements is even worse then the UK, especially currently.
Re:Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M by greenavocado on Monday June 08, 2026 @03:36PM (#48450531)
When the neighboring countries become a threat again, they will place high explosives back inside the bridges and mountain passes.
Re:Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M by herbst on Monday June 08, 2026 @03:48PM (#48450756)
Not sure if they actually removed it in all the places, except that one bridge by Basel everyone know about.
Re:Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M by izacus on Monday June 08, 2026 @05:51PM (#48452727)
Well they also blow up 70% of their exports? :P
Re:Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M by greenavocado on Monday June 08, 2026 @03:33PM (#48450458)
I already pass through Swiss customs when driving in, so it makes virtually no difference to me besides slowing things down at the border potentially.
Re:Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M by ceejayoz on Monday June 08, 2026 @03:40PM (#48450614)
Schengen covers border controls (i.e. immigration/visits), not customs ones (the stuff you bring with).
Re:Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M by greenavocado on Monday June 08, 2026 @03:47PM (#48450739)
When you drive through there is someone standing looking at the line of cars and if they don't like the way you look they point to the side and you have to explain yourself and your cargo. It's like an arbitrary border control right now.

Most of the time I'm waved through.

Re:Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M by ceejayoz on Monday June 08, 2026 @03:48PM (#48450780)
Yes, I'm aware of the current state of things.

This is a proposal to change that state to something far stricter in this regard.

Re:Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M by herbst on Monday June 08, 2026 @03:48PM (#48450775)
To be fair there is the same thing between Austria and Germany for example. Except it's more strict there even.
Re:Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M by amunozo on Tuesday June 09, 2026 @01:53AM (#48457043)
It's not the population cap, but that bilateral agreements with the EU depend on the free movement of people. Without it, Switzerland could lose access to the EU market, which accounts for 51% of their exports. Switzerland cannot just choose whatever they like from the agreements and cancel what they don't. They will have to accept whatever in order to keep in the EU common market, or the country will suffer massive troubles. Switzerland needs the EU much more than the other way around.