Swiss vote easier naturalisation for third-generation immigrants

The government had lobbied for the measure, saying many young foreigners were born and raised in Switzerland after their grandparents moved there and have adopted a Swiss way of life.

Citizenship in Switzerland is determined by the nationality of the parents of a child, and not by the place of birth.

The immigrants generally are people from elsewhere in Europe, not migrants and refugees from Africa and the Middle East who have been pouring into the EU in the last several years, contributing to rising crime and unemployment.

Switzerland is not part of the bloc. According to an assessment by Geneva University for the government’s department of migration, most foreigners are Italian, it found, and nearly 80 percent are white Europeans. The rest are mostly from the Balkans.

The promoter of the proposal in parliament, Ada Marra, is a daughter of Italian parents who came to Switzerland in the 1960s.

The new constitutional amendment simplifies naturalisation not open borders, because unlike the United States and some European countries, Switzerland does not grant automatic citizenship to children born on its soil. It is aimed at “well-integrated” people no older than 25 who were born in Switzerland and speak at least one Swiss national language fluently, went to school there for at least five years, share Swiss cultural values, and most importantly do not depend on state aid.

The country actually lists more official languages than any other country in Europe.

The campaign by anti-immigration activists who had used posters showing a burqa-clad woman with the slogan “no unchecked naturalisation” against the proposal, did not mean much to voters, as most third generation immigrants in Switzerland are not from Arab or Muslim countries.

Some 25 percent of Switzerland’s population have remained foreign and mostly wealthy because of strict citizenship rules, a relatively high rate in comparison to surrounding EU countries. Thus voters dismissed suggestions that the move could pose a security threat.

The citizenship initiative affects only 25 000 people, but the long-term implications could be far-reaching to Switzerland’s small total population of 8.2 million, and senior People’s Party parliamentarians warned that “uncontrolled naturalisation” could become a problem in the future.

They argued that poorly integrated immigrants, notably from Islamic countries, could soon have the upper hand in the ballot. The party also announced moves to ban dual citizenship for those applying for Swiss citizenship. The SVP pointed out that the coming decades could see increasing numbers of applications from the descendants of immigrants from the former Yugoslavia and Turkey.

Jean-Luc Addor, SVP lawmaker, had implored voters 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.”

Under the current system, immigrants had faced a lengthy and often expensive naturalisation procedure. Swiss law typically requires foreigners to be residents of the country for 12 years before applying for citizenship. They are required to undergo a series of tests and interviews to assess their suitability, and are judged by criteria that differ from one canton to another.

The measure approved on Sunday will not change those basic rules, but will speed up and simplify the approval process, using uniform criteria, only for foreigners under 25 whose parents and grandparents have permanent residence status in Switzerland.

Unlike France and Germany, Switzerland has never tried to increase its population by facilitating citizenship. Brigitte Studer, a professor of history at Bern University, says modern-day Switzerland has tried to control immigration by maintaining the right to send foreign labour back home when the economy slowed down.

Projections by public broadcaster SRF after polls closed showed the measure winning by a wide 59-41 percent margin. After polls closed, SRF announced that 60.4 percent had voted in favour of the amendment and 39.6 percent had voted against.

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