Swiss immigration referendum, February 2014

Federal popular initiative
"against mass immigration"

Do you accept the federal popular initiative "against mass immigration"?

Location

Date

9 February 2014

Results
	Votes	%
Yes	1,463,854	7001503300000000000♠50.33%
No	1,444,552	7001496700000000000♠49.67%
Valid votes	2,908,406	7001986500000000000♠98.65%
Invalid or blank votes	39,750	7000135000000000000♠1.35%
Total votes	2,948,156	100.00%
Registered voters/turnout	5,211,426	7001565700000000000♠56.57%

Results by canton

Results of the initiative, in the twenty-six cantons of Switzerland. It shows differences between linguistic regions (German-French: +10.6%; German-Italian: -16.0%; French-Italian: -26.6%) as well as between countryside and cities (-9.9%).


Yes			50.33%
No			49.67%
Blank			1.05%
Null			0.29%

Website: Official results

The Swiss federal popular initiative "against mass immigration" (German: Eidgenössische Volksinitiative "Gegen Masseneinwanderung", French: Initiative populaire « Contre l'immigration de masse », Italian: Iniziativa popolare "Contro l'immigrazione di massa") was a referendum that aimed to limit immigration through quotas, as it had been prior to the bilateral treaties between Switzerland and the European Union launched 2002.

The proposal was launched by the national conservative Swiss People's Party and was accepted by a majority of the electorate (50.3%, a difference of 19,526 votes) and a majority of the cantons (14.5 out of 23; 12 of 20 full cantons plus five of six half cantons) on 9 February 2014. This initiative was mostly backed by rural (57.6% approvals), suburban (51.2% approvals), and isolated cities (51.3% approvals) of Switzerland as well as by a strong majority (69.2% approvals) in the Italian-speaking canton of Ticino, while metropolitan centers (58.5% rejection) and the French-speaking part (58.5% rejection) of Switzerland rejected it.

The EU/CH bilateral treaties are all co-dependent, if one is terminated then all are terminated. Consequently, should Switzerland choose unilaterally to cancel the 'free movement' agreement then all its agreements with the EU will lapse unless a compromise is found. On 22 December 2016, Switzerland and the EU concluded an agreement that a new Swiss law (in response to the referendum) may require Swiss employers to give priority to Swiss-based job seekers (Swiss nationals and foreigners registered in Swiss job agencies) but does not limit the free movement of EU workers to Switzerland.

As of 2014, 23.4% of Switzerland's population are foreigners (9% in Germany). The net immigration is 80,000 people per year, 1% of the total population (three times more than e.g. in Germany, four times more than in the United States). Every year 30,000 to 40,000 receive Swiss nationality (this represents a per capita rate of about three times that of both Germany and the United States). According to the European Commission about 1 million EU citizens live in Switzerland and another 230,000 cross the border daily for work, while 430,000 Swiss live in the EU.

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Wikipedia