Swiss Abroad

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As Swiss Abroad ( French Suisses de l'étranger , Italian Svizzeri all'estero , Romansh Svizzers a l'exteriur ) are Swiss citizens referred to, who do not live in Switzerland. They are often called the Fifth Switzerland . This expression is explained by the four language regions of Switzerland ( German-speaking Switzerland , French-speaking Switzerland , Italian Switzerland , Romansch Switzerland ). The Swiss abroad currently make up around a tenth of all Swiss citizens.

Representation of interests and political rights

As the umbrella organization of around 750 Swiss associations abroad, the Organization of the Swiss Abroad (OSA) sees itself as representing the interests of the Swiss abroad - including those who are not organized in the associations and clubs. On behalf of the federal government , it also publishes the information organ , Swiss Review .

The Swiss Abroad have had the right to vote and to vote in elections and referendums at national level since 1974 . However, since they had to travel to Switzerland for this, only around 10,000 Swiss abroad took part in national elections. This only changed with the introduction of postal voting on July 1, 1992, since then the Swiss abroad have been able to actually exercise their voting rights without having to travel to Switzerland. In order to be able to participate in the elections, the Swiss abroad must register in the electoral register of their last Swiss municipality or in their home town . However, anyone who does not take part in a vote or election for four years will be removed from the electoral register and must become active again in order to be able to participate in political life again. In 2010 around 130,000 Swiss abroad were entitled to vote. Voting rights for the Swiss abroad are regulated differently at cantonal level .

In 2009 a parliamentary initiative to introduce special seats for the Swiss abroad only narrowly failed.

Voting and voting behavior

The voting behavior of the Swiss abroad differs from that of the Swiss at home. They represent economically and socially liberal positions and are much more positive about opening up Switzerland to foreign policy. In particular, when it comes to voting on migration policy , the Swiss abroad show a significantly different voting behavior, they reject proposals such as the deportation initiative by a majority (in seven out of eight cantons that recorded voting behavior) and there is also a significant difference in favor of opening up foreign policy when it comes to foreign policy proposals.

In the 2011 National Council elections , the SP was the strongest party among the Swiss abroad with 21%. The second strongest party was the SVP with 20%, which made the largest losses of all parties compared to the overall result among the Swiss abroad. In contrast, the Greens, with a share of 15% of the vote, almost doubled their share of the Swiss Abroad compared to the national final result of 8.4%. Thanks to the high proportion of voters among the Swiss Abroad, they were able to improve their overall result by 0.2%.

Birth abroad

A Swiss citizen born abroad with dual citizenship forfeits Swiss citizenship on reaching the age of 22 if he has not been registered with a Swiss authority abroad or in Switzerland by then or has registered himself or has declared in writing that he will retain Swiss citizenship want (Article 10 BüG). If he has failed to report or declare for excusable reasons, he can submit an application for re- naturalization within ten years (Article 21 BüG).

statistics

At the end of December 2018, 760,233 Swiss citizens were living abroad (statistics of those registered with a Swiss diplomatic mission abroad). 567,756 people or 74.68% of the Swiss abroad are dual citizens. Most of the Swiss abroad lived in Europe (475,912), followed by America (179,967), Asia (52,558), Oceania (32,360) and Africa (19,436). The largest consular district and therefore the largest Swiss community outside of Switzerland was Lyon (104,137).

Swiss in Europe Swiss abroad

475,912 Swiss people or around 62% of the Swiss abroad were living in a European country on December 31, 2018. Of these, 96.21% (457,898) lived in a member state of the European Union .

284,321 Swiss people or 37.4% of the Swiss abroad lived in a country outside Europe on December 31, 2018. Of these, more than half lived in the USA, Canada or Australia.

Countries with more than 10,000 Swiss citizens:

Countries with more than 1,000 Swiss citizens:

Expo.02

At the Swiss national exhibition Expo.02 , the six catamarans that sailed between the individual locations were named after the city on each continent where most of the Swiss abroad live. Their names were accordingly:

With this step they wanted to pay homage to Fifth Switzerland as part of the Expo.

See also

literature

  • Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, Service for the Swiss Abroad (ed.): Guide for the Swiss Abroad , FDFA, Service for the Swiss Abroad / Federal Office for Buildings and Logistics , Sales of Publications, Bern 2009, additional online offer at admin.ch .
  • Benedikt Vogel: Eastward . Swiss in the new Europe. Orell Füssli, Zurich 2004, ISBN 3-280-06043-5 .
  • Susanne Wegmann: The fifth Switzerland on the fifth continent: the changes in Swiss overseas migration since the early 19th century. Rüegger, Grüsch 1989, ISBN 3-7253-0354-1 (= Concrete Strangers , Volume 7; also a dissertation at the University of Zurich from 1988 under the title: On the Migration of the Swiss to Australia ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Federal Department of Foreign Affairs - Swiss Abroad
  2. ↑ The fifth Switzerland in Tages-Anzeiger from July 2016
  3. ↑ 100 years of organization for the Swiss Abroad: Loyalty, lobbying and pragmatism . In: NZZ , August 4, 2016
  4. ↑ What makes our emigrants tick? on SRF from August 5, 2016
  5. ↑ Information sheet on the voting and election rights of the Swiss abroad  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 23 kB) published by the FDFA@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.eda.admin.ch  
  6. ↑ a b Luzius Stucki: The long struggle of the Swiss abroad for their voting rights . In: terra cognita . No. 17/2010 , 2010, p. 42–43 ( terra-cognita.ch [PDF; accessed on February 11, 2013]).
  7. ^ Results of the federal vote on November 28, 2010. Organization of the Swiss Abroad, December 6, 2010, accessed on February 11, 2013 .
  8. ^ The political profile of the Swiss abroad . In: Swiss Review . No. 3 , June 2012, p. 14–15 ( aso.ch [PDF; accessed on February 11, 2013]).
  9. ↑ BfS, Service for the Swiss Abroad: Statistics on the Swiss Abroad 2017 and 2018 by country of residence