{"id":13028,"date":"2014-02-18T11:21:23","date_gmt":"2014-02-18T11:21:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/praag.org\/?p=13028"},"modified":"2014-02-18T11:21:23","modified_gmt":"2014-02-18T11:21:23","slug":"who-will-clean-swiss-toilets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praag.org\/?p=13028","title":{"rendered":"‘Who will clean Swiss toilets?’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"swissaliens\"<\/a>Switzerland’s vote to curb immigration has soured relations with the European Union and prompted companies including Nestle SA to warn of a potential effect on their business.<\/p>\n

The vote outcome requires government quotas for all immigrants including European Union nationals.<\/p>\n

The referendum responded to concerns over Switzerland\u2019s mushrooming population, which grew 12 percent between 2000 and 2012. That has caused rents to spiral, construction to boom, and space in trains to grow tighter.<\/p>\n

Switzerland voted against joining the EU\u2019s precursor in 1992, preferring to stay a landlocked country surrounded by the bloc. A set of bilateral treaties, touching on topics ranging from market access for goods and services to scientific research, govern its relations.<\/p>\n

While two recessions in four years have boosted anti-immigration parties across the euro area, Switzerland is unique because the limits will target many highly skilled workers.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not only in parts of Switzerland that people welcomed the vote outcome. European politicians from France\u2019s Marine Le Pen to Geert Wilders of the Netherlands and Heinz-Christian Strache in Austria cheered the decision, saying the Swiss result should resonate in the rest of Europe.<\/p>\n

The Swiss People\u2019s Party, or SVP, the biggest in parliament with 26.6 percent of the national vote in 2011, is a staunch opponent of EU membership and is also critical of too much power with the federal government in Bern. It spearheaded the anti-immigration vote, as it has other popular initiatives, billing these as a way for the common citizen to take back power. Party President Toni Brunner is a farmer by profession.<\/p>\n

Swiss people feel disadvantaged in the labor market with wage dumping.<\/p>\n

Switzerland managed to remain largely unscathed from the debt crisis and recession that afflicted the euro area. In 2013, the unemployment rate among Swiss citizens as measured by the International Labour Organization stood at 3.1 percent while among foreigners it was 8.3 percent.<\/p>\n

For the EU, the jobless rate was 12.1 percent last year. At the same time, Swiss house prices have climbed almost 40 percent in the last 10 years.<\/p>\n

Switzerland thus seems better off alone as immigrants become a burden to society. Adding fuel to the fire, the clampdown by European governments on tax evaders with secret Swiss bank accounts has at times been portrayed by the SVP as Switzerland getting bossed about by the EU.<\/p>\n

Even so, the approval of the immigration ballot has many Swiss worried.\u00a0Who\u2019s going to clean Swiss toilets, take care of the sick and elderly, and who\u2019s going to wash the dishes in a restaurant?<\/p>\n

The banking and pharmaceuticals sectors are the economy\u2019s big pillars. Agriculture makes up only 3.6 percent of employment and about 1 percent of annual output. Only a quarter of the population lives in a rural area, less than Austria or Italy, though more than in France.<\/p>\n

Switzerland is doing well, and the EU isn\u2019t. The Swiss want to keep it that way it seems.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Switzerland’s vote to curb immigration has soured relations with the European Union and prompted companies including Nestle SA to warn of a potential effect on their business. The vote outcome requires government quotas for all immigrants including European Union nationals. The referendum responded to concerns over Switzerland\u2019s mushrooming population, which grew 12 percent between 2000 … Continue reading “‘Who will clean Swiss toilets?’”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13029,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,3],"tags":[8366,1064,8367,653],"class_list":["post-13028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe","category-news","tag-german-speaking","tag-immigration","tag-landlocked-country","tag-switzerland"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/swissaliens.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13028"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13028\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13030,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13028\/revisions\/13030"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}