Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M

admin.ch

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 891 posts

Re: Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M

#141

Post by joe_mamba »

soco wrote: post #68
ouk wrote: post #14

This initiative is a trap. Essentially, it would allow for the termination of bilateral agreements with Europe. This is what the SVP has been trying to do for decades, and this initiative provides them with a convenient excuse. And it’s particularly ironic because the SVP has always opposed legislation promoting sustainability.

I must wonder though who could profit from Switzerland leaving Schengen. Okay pass checks are only a little hassle, but visas can become bigger, and judicial cooperation on international crime just drops. And yes, no more cross-border workers either way.

>I must wonder though who could profit from Switzerland leaving Schengen.

Same types of people who profited from Brexit.

Re: Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M

#142

Post by contagiousflow »

kuboble wrote: post #132

Being in Switzerland it looks to me like this is a really tough referendum. Both sides have very good arguments and from the side it looks like either way the Switzerland has to give up some asoects of its high quality of life. If the initiative succeeds, Switzerland will get a large hit from the cancelation of a lot of bilateral agreements with the EU. If the population exceeds 10M then the current rail and road inf…

Can you explain how adding frequency to the train network will not work to compensate higher ridership?

Re: Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M

#143

Post by Argonaut998 »

cynicalsecurity wrote: post #130
Argonaut998 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Swiss ruling class don’t have as much disdain for their populace. It will only end up that way if the Swiss people will it. A lot of the UK’s problems were a result of the EU being vindictive as well. The EU won’t act vindictively because they aren’t in the EU.

Vindictive how? That it refuses to let the Brits have their cake and eat it?

Vindictive in preventing trade agreements. Vindictive like France doing nothing to stop the immigrants going through the channel

Re: Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M

#144

Post by dguest »

I'm probably missing something. This would seem a bit problematic for some organizations that put Switzerland on the world stage, e.g.

- The UN

- CERN

- The Red Cross

- The WHO

- The World Economic Forum

- ETH Zurich

There are probably a lot of others I'm missing.

I'd imagine international banks also benefit from recruiting foreign nationals to do business with their home countries, and not just because there's a shortage of domestic labor. The whole point of these organizations is to be the headquarters of a much larger international project.

I guess maybe there will be a lot of weird exceptions if this were to go though. Otherwise, good luck sourcing your diplomats from entirely Swiss people.

Re: Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M

#145

Post by FabCH »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #117
FabCH wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Support for EU within EU is growing since the war in Ukraine and has gone to overdrive since Trump 2.0. No current political party except for fringe parties in any EU state advocates for exiting the EU or ending the four freedoms. It’s reasonable to say that yes, EU citizens do approve of freedom of movement in EU. They probably do want to limit freedom of non-EU citizens though… … which is exactly why the EU would t…

> Support for EU within EU is growing since the war in Ukraine I believe you. But hard numbers? > No current political party except for fringe parties in any EU state advocates for exiting the EU or ending the four freedoms Eh, there seems to be massive demand for modifying either freedom of movement or the context around it. > They made that quite clear with the UK The UK invoked Article 50. That wouldn’t happen her…

There is no demand for modifying freedom of movement within EU. It’s not even a topic in most EU countries.

What IS a topic, is preventing non-EU migration, and that has broad support and slowly all parties are moving in that direction.

And we are NOT EU. But for now, they basically go „yes yes, but we think of you as EU because we are so tightly connected“.

So what do you expect to happen if we push the point and make them treat us as non-EU?

Re: Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M

#146

Post by bapo »

Swiss here and able to vote.

In fact, just posted my voting letter today, before taking a 1h bike ride through the biggest city in Switzerland, having lots of space and freedom biking around in our beautiful city.

When taking the train to my parents house, I pass several farms and landly smaller cities. Alot of free space in between those, train mostly has spare seats, depending on rush hour timings. There usually are several big commercials on private farmer land stating “NO to 10 Million Population”, prompting people to vote YES on the SVP/UDC initiative.

The initiative’s lancers seem to play a lot on people’s fear of overcrowding, which even in the most population-dense city in Switzerland seems like a joke. There’s a lot of space and quality of living is still amazing here.

Yes, during rush hours, you might have to stand for 15-30min in public transport. Yes, finding an appartment is getting harder and more difficult.

But is this a problem of more people coming here or the failures of the state preparing for future population growth? We have so much space, benefits from diverse cultures and love for human beings.

My letter was specifically voting AGAINST this initiative.

Re: Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M

#147

Post by hvb2 »

contagiousflow wrote: post #142
kuboble wrote: post #132

Being in Switzerland it looks to me like this is a really tough referendum. Both sides have very good arguments and from the side it looks like either way the Switzerland has to give up some asoects of its high quality of life. If the initiative succeeds, Switzerland will get a large hit from the cancelation of a lot of bilateral agreements with the EU. If the population exceeds 10M then the current rail and road inf…

Can you explain how adding frequency to the train network will not work to compensate higher ridership?

You can't add more trains if the schedule is full to the brink. You would need to add train tracks, and that requires big projects

Re: Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M

#148

Post by easyThrowaway »

kuboble wrote: post #132

Being in Switzerland it looks to me like this is a really tough referendum. Both sides have very good arguments and from the side it looks like either way the Switzerland has to give up some asoects of its high quality of life. If the initiative succeeds, Switzerland will get a large hit from the cancelation of a lot of bilateral agreements with the EU. If the population exceeds 10M then the current rail and road inf…

Are they counting “frontalieri” towards that cap?

No? Funny how that works, isn’t?

Re: Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M

#149

Post by joe_mamba »

skywhopper wrote: post #124
dnautics wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how did they ever survive in the pre-EU/schengen/EEC era?

Their neighbors were similarly restrictive back then, and the European economy was not as integrated.

> 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

#150

Post by jrflowers »

plqbfbv wrote: post #81
jrflowers wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you increased Switzerland’s population density by 50% they’d be in a crowded hellhole like (checks notes) Belgium

Yeah, but while Belgium is basically a huge plain, Switzerland is 60% Alps. If you account for that, the effective density of Switzerland on the usable area is 600–700 people/km².

Looks like it’s 380 in the Swiss Plateau (you might be mixing up sq km and sq mi), which puts its at about ~70% of the population density of the Netherlands as a whole.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_Plateau

Post reply on HN