Initiative launched to make becoming Swiss easier

About a quarter of Swiss residents do not have Swiss citizenship © Keystone / Christian Beutler

Anyone who has lived in Switzerland for five years, has a basic knowledge of a national language and has not committed a serious criminal offence should receive a Swiss passport. This is the demand of a popular initiative launched on Tuesday.

The initiative committee, Aktion VierviertelExternal link, now has until November 23, 2024, to collect the 100,000 valid signatures required for the initiative to make it to the polls.

+ How to become Swiss

Specifically, the initiative calls for naturalisation to be possible after five years of legal residence in Switzerland, irrespective of the permanent residence permit. Today, only people who have a C residence permit and have lived in Switzerland for at least ten years – including three of the past five – are eligible for naturalisation.

About a quarter of Swiss residents do not have Swiss citizenship (of whom about a fifth were born in Switzerland). According to a study, Switzerland has the second-strictest naturalisation rules in Europe after Cyprus.

Recurring topic

Reforms of the citizenship law are a recurring topic in Switzerland. In 2017 voters decided that well-integrated third-generation foreigners should be able to naturalise more easily. These changes came into force in 2018. It later turned out, however, that the number of these naturalisations did not increase as much as expected.

In recent years parliament has rejected making naturalisation easier, including two parliamentary initiatives that would have granted foreigners more co-determination rights after five years in Switzerland.

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