Swissinfo.ch published an interactive chart that clearly shows which countries and continents the foreigners permanently and legally residing in Switzerland come from. In particular, it shows that almost 80% of foreign nationals in Switzerland come from European countries. Citizens of Germany, Italy, Portugal, and France make up nearly half of the foreign diaspora living in the country.
In terms of immigration rates, Switzerland also ranks first among European countries. Here, there are 20 incoming foreigners per 1,000 residents per year (as of 2013). Thereby, the Confederation outperforms Germany (8.4 arrivals per 1,000 population), Great Britain (8.2), Spain (6), and France (5.1) in this indicator.
Equally large is the number of so-called 'secondos' – people born in Switzerland to migrant parents, who have never lived anywhere else but Switzerland, have imbibed the language (and sometimes more than one) and culture of this country with their mother's milk – and yet, still have not received the right to simplified naturalization (the normal naturalization process sometimes lasts, depending on the canton, for years and costs thousands and thousands of francs). According to 2014 data provided by the Swiss Federal Statistical Office (Bundesamt für Statistik), there are currently about 388,700 such 'secondos' living in the country, which corresponds to about 20% of the total foreign diaspora in Switzerland.
As for Ukraine, there are currently 6,132 people from our country living in Switzerland (0.3% of the total number of foreigners). For more details on which foreign citizens prefer to live in Switzerland, read our next article: SETTLED IN THE ALPS.
As Swissinfo.ch notes, in recent years the number of naturalizations of foreign citizens permanently and legally residing in Switzerland who have applied to the authorities for citizenship has steadily declined. Thus, in 2014 their number was only 32,800 people, whereas in the record year of 2008 this indicator was at 44,400 people. However, starting from 2015, growth has been observed again.
The trend of declining interest in the Swiss passport could also be observed when subtracting from the total number of naturalizations those obtained through simplified procedures (e.g., spouses of Swiss citizens). In this case, over the same period (2008-2014), the number of naturalizations decreased from 35,600 to 23,700 people, representing a drop of 38%.
According to experts, this development in the situation with foreigners obtaining Swiss citizenship was due to the tightening of naturalization conditions by the cantons (recall that in Switzerland, citizenship is granted by the federal subjects and a person is first a citizen of the canton and by virtue of that, of all of Switzerland). In particular, many, especially German-speaking cantons have recently begun to require passport applicants to pass language and civics exams. For potential new citizens of the country, such tests often become an insurmountable barrier, although, as many philology experts say, some cantons have recently significantly eased the difficulty level of language tests.
However, in 2015 the situation began to change, as can be seen. For example, last year the number of completed ordinary (not simplified) naturalizations increased from 23 7000 to 31 200, while the number of simplified naturalizations even reached a certain record, amounting to 9 400 cases.
Experts express the opinion that this kind of sharp growth was due to another legislative initiative put forward by the Swiss People's Party, the purpose of which is to oblige the country's parliament to adopt a law providing for the immediate deportation of foreign citizens who have broken the law. The majority of new Swiss citizens are 'recruited' from among former citizens of Portugal, Italy, Germany, and Kosovo.
Translation by Igor PETROV.