Vote on the 10-million initiative on 14 June 2026

On 14 June, Switzerland will vote on the Swiss People’s Party’s (SVP) 10-million initiative. The SVP aims to strictly limit the population through this measure. The aim is to prevent the 10-million mark from being reached before 2050. Currently, 9.15 million people live in Switzerland. Forecasts by the Federal Statistical Office predict that the 9.5 million threshold will be exceeded as early as 2030, and the 10-million threshold in 2041. Since the introduction of the free movement of per-sons with the EU in 2002, the Swiss population has grown by around 1.7 million people, mainly due to the resulting simplification of immigration. The SVP now wants to put the brakes on this with its initiative.

This latest SVP initiative is part of a series of votes on immigration policy issues since the first referendum in 1970 against ‘foreign infiltration’ (the Schwarzenbach Initiative). The 10-million initiative reflects Switzerland’s ambivalent attitude towards urgently needed labour, humanitarian obligations in the spirit of Henri Dunant, and the fear of foreign infiltration.
The SVP has been attempting to restrict immigration to Switzerland for decades, and the free movement of persons with the EU, in place since 2002, is a particular thorn in its side. The party achieved its first initiative success in 2014 with the Mass Immigration Initiative, securing 50.3% of the ‘yes’ votes. The Mass Immigration Initiative called for the residence permits of foreign nationals to be limited by annual caps and quotas. The Swiss Constitution already stipulates that the country controls immigration ‘independently’ and limits it through ‘annual quotas and limits’. However, this provision does not apply to the free movement of persons with the EU; quotas exist only for immigrants from third countries.

Read the full report here.