This. It's not about capping the native population. The UDC is a right-wing party and this is a campaign against restricting non-natives settling in Switzerland and to stop refugees (economic and otherwise) from entering the country in the first place.

Some context: The UDC has a long history of being anti-foreigner (starting in the 60/70s with Italian workers, then Balkan war refugees in the 90s and so on). It's kinda their thing to launch initiatives that sound good on paper but technically can't be made to work. For instance, back in 2016 they had one to force the government to stop dragging their feet with repatriating migrants that had no legal right of residence or asylum.

The initiative also has to be seen against the context of the bilateral agreement deals with the EU. Back then, the Swiss government negotiated a so called "valve clause" that would allow them to cap free movement if a certain threshold of EU citizens settles in Switzerland, while at the same time promising the Swiss people that this was an edge case anyway, and that the clause wouldn't be needed. Turns out, that was wrong and the government didn't do much about it because the clause can't technically be enforced without killing the EU agreements (or so the argument goes). Combine that with a laissez-fair enforcement politics on repatriation, rising prices and pressure on the Swiss population by well educated and highly mobile workers from the EU and you got a good foundation for successful campaing. At least on paper.

Then again, Switzerland needs some level of migration and the population knows that. Both well educated and cheap labor is needed to keep the country prospering. This has has been the case in the past as well. In the 70s, the Italians quite literally built large chunks of the country (Constructions), then in the 90s/00s the Balkan folks built up the low wage service sector (gastronomy, retail, call-centers, etc.), in the 10s the Germans in the health sector and now in the 20s the tech workers from Eastern and Southern Europe.

It'll be interesting to see which way the vote will go. The UDC is somewhat correct in that it's kinda getting cramped if nothing is done. And that there is a not unsubstantial amount of economic migrants having no business being in Switzerland. On top of that, the Ukrain question lingers in the background. But whether their initiative is a good recipe to solve all that is doubtful to say the least.

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