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“It needs a naturalization offensive,” says Green Party leader Aline Trede.
Ruedi StuderBundeshaus Editor
The naturalization debate is gaining momentum! The Green Liberals want to limit the naturalization period to seven years, a new popular initiative even to five years, and the National Council wants to relax the naturalization criteria for the third generation of foreigners.
The Greens are now upping the ante. They want to fundamentally change the naturalization policy. “We are introducing the place of birth principle: anyone who was born here will receive a Swiss passport,” says the new election program that is to be approved by the delegates’ meeting on Saturday.
This means a change from the current principle of descent («ius sanguinis») to the principle of place of birth («ius soli»), as known in France or the USA. “People who were born in Switzerland shouldn’t have to prove their integration first just because their parents don’t have a Swiss passport,” says the green election program.
Naturalization after three years
The birthplace principle is not the only relaxation that the Greens are proposing. They also want to significantly shorten the waiting period again. The election program states: “We enshrine the right to naturalization for everyone who has been living in Switzerland for more than three years with a regular status.”
A right to naturalization – for settled residents as well as for asylum seekers or temporarily admitted persons if they meet the naturalization criteria.
Trede calls for a naturalization offensive
“It needs a naturalization offensive,” says Green Party leader Aline Trede (39) to Blick. Although around 40,000 people are naturalized every year, the proportion of foreigners is still increasing – and was 25.7 percent at the end of 2021.
“The gap between those who can have a say in the country and those who have nothing to say is widening,” says Trede. “That’s a problem for a democracy.”
Anyone who has lived here for three years should therefore receive a Swiss passport. “Experience shows that anyone who has been in Switzerland for three years usually stays here – and these people should be able to have a say,” says Trede.
And those born in Switzerland are mostly children of the second or third generation of foreigners. “It’s absurd that they don’t get the Swiss passport right from the start.” Trede makes it clear that certain limits should also be placed on “ius soli”. “We don’t want birth tourism just to get the red passport either. It needs certain criteria.”
High hurdles
However, the hurdles to implementing green ideas are high. In the current legislature, attempts to relax the naturalization criteria have failed several times.
In 2021, an initiative for “ius soli” by the then SP Council of States Paul Rechsteiner (70, SG) fell through in parliament. Likewise, a proposal by left-wing National Councilor Stefania Prezioso Batou (53, GE), according to which children of foreign parents born and living in Switzerland should automatically receive Swiss citizenship at the age of 18.
Trede is undeterred. “It sometimes takes several attempts for socio-political changes,” she says. “We won’t let that deter us.”
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