Swiss Exceptionalism or the Beginning of an End?

Last month Swiss voters narrowly approved a proposal to limit the free movement of workers and their families to the country.  Switzerland is not a member of the European Union, but it is a party to the Schengen agreement and is closely bound to the EU (which completely surrounds the landlocked alpine nation) through over 100 bilateral treaties.  Switzerland joined the Schengen Area in 2005 as a result of similar popular referendum.  That referendum, held on June 5, 2005, had a markedly liberal outcome.  On the ballot that day were two provisions, both of which won popular support: 1) Swiss adhesion to the Schengen free-movement agreement and, 2) the introduction of registered same-sex partnerships.  Voter turnout for the election was 2,745,267 or 56% of registered voters.  The Schengen agreement was passed by a majority of 54.6% (while the registration provision passed by 58.0%).  However, an important ethnic split was apparent in the 2005 vote, with German speaking Swiss generally opposing and French speaking Swiss generally in favor.  This linguistic division was replicated in the recent vote.  French speakers in the west largely opposed the measure, while Italian speakers in the east supported the provision, with German speakers split.

                The February 2014 referendum was a decidedly conservative ballot, with issues that were clearly geared toward motivating conservative voters.  Turnout for the vote was nearly identical with the 2005 vote at 55.8%, which is considered high for referendum voting in Switzerland (which is usually around 40%).  The immigration provision, which institutes quotas for immigration, appeared on the ballot along with an anti-abortion measure that would have dropped abortion procedures from public health insurance.  The abortion measure was soundly defeated (with 69.8% opposed) while the immigration measure passed by the barest majority (with 50.3% in favor). 

                In many respects the Swiss vote tracks rising anti-immigrant and anti-Schengen sentiment in Europe.  The anti-immigrant proposal was driven by the efforts and funding of the Swiss People’s Party (SVP), a rightwing party campaigning on a conservative nationalist platform.  The SVP is the largest party in the Swiss lower house and is Eurosceptic, anti-Islam and isolationist.  Far-right parties have been gaining political traction in France, Germany, Norway, Netherlands and Britain using anti-immigrant platforms.  However, in other respects the Swiss immigrant profile is unique.  Since Switzerland signed on the free-movement agreement around 64,000 EU community members migrated annually with 69% of them highly skilled.  Nearly a quarter of the Swiss population is foreign-born, which is four times the average of other EU member states.

                The Swiss vote is particularly disconcerting given British Prime Minister David Cameron’s announcement that his government is dedicated to cutting immigration and negotiating limits on EU immigration to the UK.  Nigel Farage, leader of the far-right UK Independence Party remarked on the vote, applauding the Swiss “freedom to decide the number and skill level of who they wish to invite to work or stay in their country”.  While the UK is not party to the Schengen agreement and is a limited member of the EU, restrictionist migration politics have been gaining strength in the country.  Both the UK and Switzerland represent fringe EU countries in that neither are a full member to the integration scheme.  However, the recent focus on immigration, continually and opportunistically cast as a threat to domestic employment, hints at a much larger threat to regional integration, not only in Europe but around the globe.

                Regional integration is the modern incarnation of globalization and a tool for facilitating the interactions driving the global economy.  Integration seeks to ease the flow of the four factors of globalization: goods, services, finance and people.  Regional integration schemes have been largely successful with respect to the first three.  With respect to the freer movement of people, only the EU has taken steps to ensure the mobility of people as workers.  The recent news in Switzerland is a blow to this sole model of full integration.  At the heart of the issue is the “in group”-“out group” dynamics that have dominated human societies since the rise of civilization.  Modern humans are apt to easily accept foreign goods, services and finance in their lives, but introducing foreign people provokes a deep rooted fear that can be described as xenophobia, racism, ethnocentrism, nationalism, jingoism or anti-immigrant sentiment.    What this vote in Switzerland means for the European project is far from clear, even a month later.  This larger impact on regional integration schemes around the globe is even less identifiable.