Ecopop Fails

Switzerland’s anti-immigration bill that masked as environmental concern has been overwhelmingly rejected by voters:

Voters in Switzerland have decisively rejected a proposal to cut net immigration to no more than 0.2% of the population.

The country’s 26 cantons rejected the proposal, with about 74% of people voting no in Sunday’s referendum.

I’m interested in this bill because I have a feeling that nobody will do anything about the legitimate climate change issues but there will be numerous attempts to sneak all kinds of super ridiculous policies by the voters under the guise of environmental concerns.

The reason why voters rejected the Ecopop proposal is, of course, the new liquid economy:

Opponents, among them all the major political parties, argued that the proposals would be bad for the economy because business leaders wanted to be able to recruit skilled labour from across Europe.

3 thoughts on “Ecopop Fails

  1. \\ The largest group of foreign nationals living in Switzerland is Italians […]
    The second largest group comes from Germany, and the third largest comes from the former Yugoslavia.

    Are things that bad in Germany? I thought people wanted to immigrate TO Germany, not FROM it. The other two countries are very poor, right?

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    1. A little over 700,000 people emigrate from Germany every year. And that’s a little more than those who emigrate to Germany.

      “Are things that bad in Germany?”

      – People in developed countries are highly mobile, emigrating not because anything is “that bad” but because it’s entertaining or more convenient. I emigrated twice, as we all know, and neither time was anything “that bad.” When I left Canada, that was definitely not because anything was all that horrifying in Canada. 🙂

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    2. Salaries in Switzerland are significantly higher than in Germany, and the quality of life is higher too. Plus it is attractive for Germans to come to Switzerland since the language barrier is minimal, and the Swiss economy is booming. Also for people living in Southern Germany Switzerland is closer geographically and perhaps also culturally than Northern Germany.

      The entire system seems pretty weird to me. For example, is it fair that Switzerland lets Germany educate doctors at great cost, who then move to Switzerland? The fraction of people going to University in Switzerland is traditionally very low. I’m afraid at some point it becomes really unattractive for rich countries to still have expensive Universities when it can get its skilled labour from other places. We have already outsourced production of goods to poorer countries, I am wondering if we are going to outsource education at the Master and PhD level too.

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