Switzerland To Vote On Capping Population At 10 Million

 GENEVA, June 14 (NNN-dpa) -- Swiss voters are set to decide on Sunday whether to impose a cap on the country’s population, reported German news agency dpa. 

The right-wing Swiss People’s Party (SVP), Switzerland’s largest political party, is seeking to curb immigration and limit the population to 10 million by 2050. 

Switzerland is currently home to around 9.1 million people. If the initiative is adopted, the granting of asylum and family reunification would have to be restricted once the population reaches 9.5 million. That is likely to happen in the 2030s.

If those measures prove insufficient, Switzerland will have to end its freedom-of-movement agreement with the European Union, allowing reciprocal rights to live and work across borders, even though Switzerland is not an EU member.

Vote counting is set to begin at noon (1000 GMT).  For much of the campaign, opinion polls indicated majority support for the proposal.

However, surveys conducted in recent weeks have pointed to a shift in sentiment, suggesting a much tighter race. 

The outcome is expected to be close, although referendum results in Switzerland have frequently diverged from polling forecasts.

--NNN-dpa