says the Swiss bank of Switzerland, the country that has closed its boarders. Last week's immigration referendum has certainly closed any hopes of Switzerland benefiting from a diversified, thriving tech industry. Europeans will go to London, Berlin, Paris, Madrid, Amsterdam, etc before going to Switzerland.
As a swiss, I'm ashamed and angry about this vote. But I'd like to point out that all the most economically active region voted against the proposal to limit immigration. Interestingly, there was a correlation between the low number of foreigners in a region and the acceptance rate of the proposal.
Even the politicians in favor of the proposal immediately started asking for big quotas for their regions, so as not to hurt the economy - the irony...
So I'm not quite sure what will happen and the EU seems quite pissed about it (and rightly so), but looking at the tiny majority (50.3%) and the numerous lies during the campaign ("no, the EU won't do anything about it if it gets accepted"), I'm pretty confident this will either result in a law with no effect or we'll have to vote again to choose if we want to continue working with the EU or not.
I'm Swiss and I agree with the entire comment above. The result was shameful, but hopefully it will be diluted into nothingness over the years it will take before it is implemented...
jre, i know the vote was very tight. i sympathise with you, and the other half. some of my closest friends are swiss, and i spend many winters and summers there (Nyon and Laussane). they certainly share your concerns.
i also see the irony from within. additionally, switzerland, of all the european countries, is the one which has one of the lowest levels of immigration (both legal and illegal). i think an inexistent paranoia took over many of the no so educated voters.
personally, i think the EU's stand needs to be tough, just make that 50.3% realise that what a mistake they've done. legislation won't go through until the summer, so lets hope much of the absurdity is not passed.
donquichotte, you are correct. i wasn't that aware of those numbers. although i'm guessing a big bunch of those immigrants are western europeans, not "croatians". am i correct on that assumption?
antr I don't know where you got the idea that Switzerland has the lowest level of immigration of the european countries....
"Switzerland and Australia, with about a quarter of their population born outside the country, are the two countries with the highest proportion of immigrants in the world"
It is quite large, although not in a way that really aligns with the rhetoric of the anti-immigrant parties like SVP. They are mainly attacking "culturally foreign" immigrants who fail to assimilate and don't share Swiss values, mostly meaning Muslims, and secondarily meaning poor eastern Europeans. But the majority of immigrants to Switzerland are "culturally close" and assimilate fairly easily. The two biggest groups are: German immigrants to the German-speaking region of Switzerland, and Italian immigrants to the Italian-speaking region of Switzerland. Yet somehow SVP posters don't indicate that Bavarians and Milanese are the invaders...
chli, you are correct. i wasn't that aware of those numbers. although i'm guessing a big bunch of those immigrants are western europeans, not "croatians". a french in geneva, or a german in zurich are immigrants, but the swiss are not "afraid" of/referring to that immigration. am i correct on that assumption?
Liberal immigration is causing huge problems for countries ranging from the U.S. to the U.K. to France. Chalking it up to uneducated voters worrying about a nonexistent problem is disingenuous.
But hardly any of these problems are caused by immigration from EU countries, which are culturally very similar (with possible exception of Romania, see [1], though I don't personally know if that's a big problem or not).
> personally, i think the EU's stand needs to be tough, just make that 50.3% realise that what a mistake they've done.
This will most certainly not happen. Instead, it will backfire. If the EU refuses a pragmatic and goal-oriented debate out of principle, it will only damage its reputation further and strengthen the anti-EU sentiment.
I respectfully disagree. This vote has nothing to do with "closing borders". What the Swiss people want is the reintroduction of quotas, so they're going back to how it has been for many decades. It worked perfectly well before, how should it suddenly stop working now? This is nothing but drama because the EU failed with their colonialism politics. Did you actually read the proposed changes in the law that will now go into the Swiss constitution? The law ensures the autonomy of Switzerland and prevents the EU from forcing arbitrary migration laws on it. Also, the new law isn't about racism, but a state with working social systems has to control the borders more rigorously, or else it gets steamrolled.
It's all fine what Switzerland did, but by introducing the quota they practically singlesidedly canceled one of the agreements with EU that was part of the broader package. They have free trade, no customs, no tax on money transfers, right for swiss citizens to work and live throughout EU without work or stay permit. Right now, since they cancelled their side of the agreement, the whole package is up for renegotiation.
They voted, they had right to vote how they voted, just don't be surprised if that decision has some other consequences they won't like.
Agree. But with all the consequences.
If I and you have a work contract and after some months I come to you and say "Well, I am raising my vacation days of a +60" it is obvious that you won't accept without changing also my pay or some other benefits (if not just firing me)
So, if Swiss want to change the part about immigration, it is obvious UE will have to change also the other parts (if not just trashing the whole treat)
London is too expensive. Low budget start-ups contribute to thriving tech industry, and London not only excludes them but is increasingly expensive. It's experiencing something similar to SF, from what I read about SF, a hollowing out of the middle class who want some quality of life but can't compete with the multi-millionaires. A European country with sun, sea, sandy beaches, mountains, lots of space (Spain, I'm looking at you) would be attractive if it went out of its way to encourage start-ups. It would have to highlight a multilingual location so that people can fumble through beginner Spanish confident with a fall back, but I for one would race over. More foreign entrepreneurs attracted, more local jobs created.
I guess you are thinking in Mallorca. Sunny, better connected by flights with Europe than with the Iberian peninsula, lot´s of European expats living here, proportion of locals speaking at least English quite high compared to other parts of Spain... If only we could have some better entrepreneurship laws...
Barcelona is pretty good. Very international city (Catalan is actually the first language here for many, but most speak both Spanih, and some English), but Spanish bureaucracy is a nightmare.
yeah, but the Spanish rulers cannot see further than 4 years, so they are taxing the entrepreneurs and introducing stupid regulations meanwhile they support the friendly big companies with tailored laws. All of that while the corruption is rampant.
The Swiss people have voted against unregulated mass immigration from the European Union in a democratic referendum. That was basically the system until 2007 and is the default system for immigration outside the European Union. The US for example has not even unregulated mass immigration for Canadians …
The right of free movement of United States persons within the states of the union (US states are roughly comparably in size and population to EU member states) is protected by Article IV of the constitution, therefore, EU-style "unregulated mass immigration" does, in fact, exist in the United States.
Give us a little time. It's been only one week, the government and the politicians are still clueless about how to implement the text, while Europe is unleashing a mild shitstorm on the country.
I bet that soon enough we will vote again about measures to fix this vote.
No, the Swiss referendum that was carried out last week (and which the commenter refers to) was about stopping a treaty on "free movement of persons" which Switzerland was about to sign with the European Union. Such a treaty would have effectively allowed citizens of the EU to live and work in Switzerland without having to obtain a visa or residence permit first (it would not have allow them to profit from social security or other benefits, though).
Since the referendum was accepted (though with a really thin majority of 50.3 %) it will force Switzerland to renegotiate the treaty with the EU, which in fact already suspended further negotiations with Switzerland by itself.
Immigration of qualified workers will still be possible and encouraged by Switzerland, though. I think the main motivation behind the referendum was the fear of "Überfremdung" (foreign infiltration), which is probably not entirely irrational with currently 25 % of people living in Switzerland being of foreign origin. So I think one should not overreact here.
We've had the "free movement of persons" with the EU for over ten years now in Switzerland ! [1] And yes social security and other social insurances are also valid for EU people working in Switzerland.[2]
I moved from California to Lausanne and I highly recommend it. Quality of life is truly outstanding, and the high level of infrastructure development makes living here very convenient.
The biggest problem is, as the article gently suggests, housing, which is almost impossible for foreigners to find (even with asset sheets in the hundreds of thousands of USD). Affordable housing is essentially nonexistent. Every now and then voter initiatives crop up to change the situation (remove building restrictions, reduce bureaucracy, etc.), but the problem only seems to get worse.
Fortunately, an all-Switzerland unlimited travel card is only ~$4k/year for adults and ~$3k/year for <25yo's. Given the reliability and extensive reach of the public transport network here, it's definitely possible (and even fairly regular) to live in somewhat 'remote' villages and towns and still commute to work in <1hr. It's pretty cool to have the ability to live in, say, Saint-Maurice (with Bronze Age roots) and still be in the door at work within 1h15m.
This is made more palatable by the extensive fiber network available in Switzerland: multiple providers are now offering 1Gb/s connections in Lausanne proper, and the reach continues to expand. Some more-remote locations are still only served by the Swisscom state pseudomonopoly, but service is usually still reasonably cheap and line rates still reasonably high.
The mobile offerings here offer real competition, and along with the small size of the market, make cell service cheap and fast.
Finally, EPFL itself is highly ranked and has some top talent, not only in faculty (among others, includes Arjen Lenstra, Martin Odersky, Ed Bugnion, George Candea, and Katerina Argyraki), but also in PhD and MS students. EPFL also has regular workshops for entrepreneurship and actively encourages commercialization.
There's a lot of uncertainty about the new immigration mandate, which will almost certainly hurt Switzerland's attractiveness to entrepreneurs, but the ETH/EPF domain will probably not be affected; if you're a prospective graduate student interested in entrepreneurship, EPFL is definitely worth a look!
commute >1h is one of the main reasons most move away from the valley. I agree though, moving away from the US is a breath of fresh air on living standards when it comes to culture and public transport. But you can pick other cities and countries to get this. Cities that have comparable burgeoning tech scenes of their own. Berlin comes to mind. All the scrappy push of a high tech culture without all the fascist government baggage of say a US, CH or Israel.
I am amazed that people are saying that < 1.15 hour is good for commuting, yet think fibre optic is great. How much time do you actually spend waiting for downloads?
I live ten minute cycle from work. Central Barcelona. OK, my apartment is small and expensive relative to wages, but I can't stand commuting. It really does seem like a waste of your life.
I would like to point out sth that is obvious that Switzerland is (emphasis) an extremely costly place to live in. When you talk about a place or city that is known by monikers like "silicon valley", or "city of dreams", it is imperative that people who are part of that culture actually live there. What you described above can be a "silicon valley of commuters" in true sense, or a the "city of dreams" who have the money and want to make more of it. Because I think it doesn't make much of a difference for a start-up, or bunch of guys with deep pockets, to live in SF, Berlin, or Bangalore as long as they can do what they want.
Now, if your target audience was people with asset sheets in hundreds of thousands of dollars then that's an entirely different story.
Brought to you by the same country whose people have chosen last week to limit the right of free movement of European citizens. This is not a good time to start a technology business in Switzerland.
Silicon Valley is not much better -- it chooses to keep immigrant engineers from specific countries employed at the same job for 10-15 years at an almost fixed wage by utilizing the broken immigration policies of the US, which have country-specific quotas.
The only reason most of these people (myself included) don't speak out is that they have been schooled to be grateful for the fact that they have a job in a "developed" country. ["If you don't like it, just leave!"] Which is, admittedly, our situation -- so we STFU. It feels like one of those dreams when you want to open your mouth and scream...but no sound comes out.
I'd rather work in Switzerland any day, even with their proposed system (which is supposed to come into play after 3 years, and has quotas).
It is still a million times easier to establish a business and get residency in Switzerland than in the US for Europeans. So by that standard, it would be an even worse time to start a technology business in the US. And the limits that were voted last week are minimal and temporary.
In the United States, businesses have access to a workforce market of 340 million people educated to a high standard. In the European Union, businesses have access to a similar workforce of over 507 million people.
Without access to the EU workforce, Swiss businesses have access to a workforce market of 8 million people.
The overall technical/scientific ecosystem of Switzerland also looks like it will be at least somewhat damaged by this closure. US startups often start off as university spinoffs from NSF or DARPA-funded research (Sun Microsystems, Google, etc.), or as partnerships between universities and industry (a number of machine-learning/data-mining startups fit that category). The same is often true in Europe, just replace NSF/DARPA with the EU research framework (keeps changing names, but essentially the same). It gives large grants to multi-national consortia of universities and companies. Switzerland was part of the 2007-2013 "FP7" program, but they're being suspended from the 2014-2020 "Horizon 2020" program, at least for now. Existing funded projects will be allowed to complete (funding is usually for 3 years), but Swiss institutions and companies won't be allowed to be part of 2014 applications. That's causing a bit of turmoil around here (not Switzerland) right now because people had planned to submit proposals with Swiss partners who are suddenly ineligible.
It's possible Switzerland will cover some of the damage by pulling the money they would've contributed towards the EU research framework, and using it to increase domestic research funding instead. Will have to wait and see how that goes.
Too bad EU is playing that card since it's obviously a lose/lose situation.
"Switzerland's contribution to the total budget of Horizon 2020 of about EUR 81.6 billion sums up to around CHF 4.4 billion, over a seven-year period. The corresponding budget appropriation was approved by the Federal Assembly on 10 September 2013."
A lot of hate for Switzerland, but honestly I don't blame the Swiss from wanting to keep the rest of Europe out (so to speak). I think Switzerland has the sanest government in the world, and the balanced budget to prove it.
says the Swiss bank of Switzerland, the country that has closed its boarders. Last week's immigration referendum has certainly closed any hopes of Switzerland benefiting from a diversified, thriving tech industry. Europeans will go to London, Berlin, Paris, Madrid, Amsterdam, etc before going to Switzerland.