The exact weakness f direct democracy. Every Professor gets a vote, but then so does every idiot.

Its like giving the janitor a say in who should be the CEO. He has absolutely no qualification to do give his opinion, but its given the same weight as the specialist consultant.

In any case, i have a B Permit already, so i'm gonna sit back, and watch the drama unfold.

Yeah I think capping the immigration will have genetical side effects.

Every taxpayer gets a vote...why should the concerns of a professor weigh more heavily than those of a Janitor? And the Professor is probably a German who wouldn't get a vote anyway....

Also, when it comes down to it, the Swiss have demonstrated often enough that they are quite capable of making mature political decisions. How many other countries would have voted not to increase the minimal legal annual vacation because it would put too much strain on the economy?

Er...you were also talking about Switzerland so the point is very relevant.

Interestingly I can read the news about the result of the referendum everywhere but I can't seem to find the text. I guess it's my fault for not researching this earlier, as right now the big news is the result.

Has anybody understood what it changes for foreigners who lose or quit their job?
Have they added some provision that says that we cannot apply for unemployment?

I know my post may sound a little OTT but if this was an initiative that came from the other parties I would be happy to accept that (clearly immigration cannot be unlimited)....but its not....its from a party (SVP) that wants the majority of foreigners removed, that has clearly been racist in previous campaigns and which has said they will now push forward with more initiatives.

Same here (and I didnt even benefit from the EU treaties..on the contrary, had I been non/EU I would have gotten my B permit one year earlier...), but I can still understand that this was a wrong decision.

Whatever, at least some EFers will sleep well now...

The situation is Switzerland is unique, you cannot compare it to UK, Germany, France etc. And no, as long as the whole underground of Zürich is filled with gold and the gold prices are stable Switzerland will never ever end up like UK in this regard, in some other aspects I wouldn't mind though

And once again, I do believe it is a problem of the todays handling of all the new immigrants with the respect current infrastructure and so on…

but if I was a Swiss citizens I would expect A LOT from an initiative, if you have red it, it is really really a lot of things open, it more or less just state "yeah lets reduce drastically the immigration…" rock solid yes?

so the "problem" I have is that I don't believe that this initiative will solve anything but create even more problems...

I've seen a few posts from Swiss friends on FB saying the same thing. I haven't asked any of them yet if they actually voted against it.

I haven't seen the final turnout figures but it was only just above 50% earlier today. I'm guessing that quite a few who didn't bother voting actually wished that they had now.

As clearly are you.

Tom

Here you go (in German, click at top right for other national languages):
http://www.admin.ch/ch/d/pore/vi/vis413t.html

It's pretty light on detail (as is standard for these things.) It affirms that Switzerland "can" restrict foreigners' access to social services, family reunification, and length of stay, but doesn't say that Switzerland must do so.

Details will be ironed out later and will come into force sometime after that.

Has the law for limiting immigration been passed? What are the limits for Eu citizens esp UK citizens? Does it affect people who already have Swiss C permits?

The major impact of this initiative is that it keeps at least hundred people on the same thread - don't know about CH but it shapes history of the EF

Probably the same people who didn't bother voting against the minaret initiative because they thought it was all nonsense

I am a bit behind here. Has the law been passed that limits the immigration to Switzerland?? Does it have any effect on people with C permits?? Thanks for the update.

So, maybe I am stupid, but I make a straight calculation: if they complain that foreigners are too many BUT the unemployment is only 3.5 % (and half of this is made by foreigner unemployed, which makes 1.75% of unemployed Swiss people), in my humble opinion it means that those 20+% are creating jobs aka income aka GDP that otherwise would not exist. How would having less foreigners (if you exclude the 1.75% that seems to create the unemployment) affect Switzerland in a positive way?

Am I missing something here?

Not yet

Why because I don't love the SVP? You don't think they are racist?

http://www.thelocal.ch/20120221/2635

http://www.thelocal.ch/20120424/3175

Just a few examples....lets not forget that great sheep poster

There are big regional differences- what you site is averages. Where I live, unemployment is about 10% and yet we have 1000s of frontaliers coming in to work for low(er) wages daily. And yet- both the Neuchatel Jura and the Jura have voted against- whilst the Ticino, which suffers in the same way, voted 70% for- and I have no idea why the difference.

Perhaps different industries? The watch and precision engineering industries are likely to lose more from drop in exports to Europe than Ticino??? It will be interesting to follow the post vote analysis.

Although Shengen is not technically the same as FMOP, more than one EU official has claimed that Shengen is not possible without FMOP.