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Zurich approves simplified path to Swiss citizenship

Voters in Switzerland’s most populous canton on Sunday approved a proposal which will make it easier for foreigners to get Swiss citizenship.

Published: 16 May 2022 13:28 CEST
Updated: 22 May 2022 10:18 CEST

A Swiss passport seen up close

A Swiss passport seen up close. By SDE. - Own scan., Public Domain,

The vote passed with 69.1 percent support, making it the most popular of the four initiatives put to the polls.

Around 350,000 foreigners live in Zurich, which is roughly one quarter of the population – although the percentage is as high as 50 percent in some municipalities.

The successful proposal called for Zurich’s naturalisation process, including the citizenship exam, to be made uniform across all 162 municipalities.

The questions in the exam will now be centralised on a cantonal level.

The test will include 350 questions about Swiss history, tradition, politics and culture, with a focus on Zurich.

Anyone taking the test will be given 50 questions at random and must answer at least 30 correctly to pass.

More information about the citizenship process in Zurich can be found at the following link.

EXPLAINED: How Zurich wants to make naturalisation easier

What else was decided on Sunday?

Voters in Zurich also decided to reject a proposal to lower the voting age to 16, with 64.1 percent saying ‘nein’ to the proposal.

A proposal to provide for more parental leave – and even up gender imbalances between fathers and mothers – was also rejected.

Finally, voters supported law changes which sought to enshrine Zurich’s climate change goals in the cantonal constitution.

A detailed breakdown of the vote can be seen here.

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Growth spurt: What Zurich needs to do to accommodate 2 million residents

At the end of 2023, over 1.6 million people lived in Zurich, Switzerland’s most populous canton.

But this number is far from static.

The population is continuing to grow — so much so, that it will reach the 2-million mark in the coming years, cantonal authorities said in a press release.

This means an increase of around 450,000 people within the next two decades — a 28-percent growth rate, which is “significantly higher than the Swiss average.”

The primary reason for this hike, accounting for 49 percent of the increase, is immigration, followed by births (44 percent) and, to a lesser degree (7 percent), people moving to Zurich from other Swiss regions

On one hand, this is good news because “it is evidence of the canton’s attractiveness and economic prosperity,” authorities pointed out.

On the other, however, this demographic evolution will create a number of new problems and exacerbate the already existing ones.

That is why “strategic decisions are needed on how to handle challenges facing various areas,” cantonal officials said.

‘Dealing with consequences’

With this ‘growth spurt,’ Zurich will experience many of the same challenges as Switzerland on the whole will, as demographers are expecting the country’s population to swell to 10 million (from the current 9 million) people in the coming years.

Just as the federal government has started to think about the best ways to prepare the country’s infrastructure for the growing numbers, Zurich’s authorities too will be “shaping this growth” and “dealing with its consequences.”

To achieve this goal, they have launched the ‘Growth 2050” project to begin in the summer, which will examine “which approach is most suitable for strategically addressing the challenges ahead,” according to the press release.

What exactly does this mean?

While the project’s findings will not be made public until 2027, authorities will have to ensure that Zurich’s infrastructure, such as housing, public transport, as well as school and healthcare systems, will not crumble under pressure, but be able to function optimally — from both the financial and practical perspectives — in the new context.

While all these areas are important, in Zurich’s case, housing appears to be a particular problem as more residents move into the canton.

With tens of thousands of foreign nationals having settled in Zurich in the past few years, for instance, affordable housing had become scarcer — a situation that has continued to deteriorate and is expected to grow worse as more residents continue to arrive in the future.

READ ALSO: Zurich hit by affordable housing shortage amid record-high immigration

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