{"id":62528,"date":"2026-05-09T04:05:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T04:05:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/62528\/"},"modified":"2026-05-09T04:05:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T04:05:10","slug":"poll-shows-swiss-evenly-split-on-proposal-to-cap-population-at-10-million-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/62528\/","title":{"rendered":"Poll shows Swiss evenly split on proposal to cap population at 10 million"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Zurich, Switzerland<br \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.reuters.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Reuters<\/a><\/p>\n<p> Swiss voters are evenly split on whether to back a referendum proposal to restrict Switzerland\u2019s population to 10 million, an opinion poll showed on Friday.<\/p>\n<p>The Swiss Government is opposed to the initiative championed by the right-wing Swiss People\u2019s Party (SVP) that goes to a vote on 14th June, saying it will damage cooperation with the European Union, its key trade partner, and hurt the economy.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-172277\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Switzerland-Geneva-Swiss-flag-180326007.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\"  \/><br \/>A Swiss flag and a mouette boat, as seen from the Mont Blanc bridge, in Geneva, Switzerland, on 18th March, 2026. PICTURE: Reuters\/Denis Balibouse<\/p>\n<p>The proposal stipulates the permanent resident population must not exceed 10 million before 2050, and that Switzerland should end its freedom of movement accord with the EU.<\/p>\n<p>The new survey by polling firm GfS Bern for public broadcaster SRG conducted from 20th April to 3rd May, showed 47 per cent of 19,728 respondents in favour of the proposal and 47 per cent against.<\/p>\n<p>The rest expressed no opinion. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.8 percentage points.<\/p>\n<p>A survey published by another polling institute in late April showed a slight majority in favour of the initiative.<\/p>\n<p>Concern about rapid population growth and pressure on public infrastructure has fed support for the proposal, although business groups warn it will jeopardise prosperity.<\/p>\n<p>\tWe rely on our readers to fund Sight&#8217;s work &#8211; become a financial supporter today!<\/p>\n<p>Switzerland\u2019s population recently breached the nine million mark, and official data show foreign nationals accounted for more than 27 per cent of the total by 2024.<\/p>\n<p>The SVP, Switzerland\u2019s biggest party, opposes closer integration with the EU, depicting it as a threat to Swiss sovereignty and a source of excess regulation.<\/p>\n<p>Swiss lawmakers are debating a Swiss-EU deal struck in late 2024 that would deepen joint economic integration.<\/p>\n<p>The government wants Switzerland to consolidate ties with the EU to help protect the economy amid uncertainty fuelled in part by the trade policies of President Donald Trump\u2019s administration. In 2025, Washington hit Switzerland with the highest tariffs in Europe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Zurich, SwitzerlandReuters Swiss voters are evenly split on whether to back a referendum proposal to restrict Switzerland\u2019s population&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62529,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[6363,6364,41,5636,32211,17],"class_list":["post-62528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-switzerland","tag-population-cap","tag-svp","tag-swiss","tag-swiss-peoples-party","tag-swiss-referendum","tag-switzerland"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/116542644221737929","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62528\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}