The Swiss appeared set to reject calls to cap immigration in the name of saving the environment, according to the public broadcaster and initial results.

Results published by a handful of cantons, including Geneva, showed voters had flatly rejected the so-called Ecopop initiative.

In Geneva, 78.4 percent of voters rejected Ecopop, with 95 percent of votes cast.

Earlier surveys have shown the so-called Ecopop initiative gaining momentum in recent weeks but still indicate it is doomed to fail.

The proposal maintains that the influx of foreigners is swelling the Alpine nation's population and shrinking its idyllic landscapes and green spaces.

Last February, the approval of an initiative demanding quotas for immigration from the European Union caught many off guard and threw Switzerland's relations with the bloc into turmoil.

'Already too crowded'

Official statistics show that foreign nationals already make up nearly a quarter of Switzerland's 8 million inhabitants.

According to Ecopop, immigration is adding 1.1 to 1.4 percent annually to the Swiss population, putting the country on track to reach 12 million inhabitants by 2050.

"It's already getting too crowded here," Anita Messere of the Ecopop committee said, arguing that the inhabitable plains were being covered in concrete at a rate of more than 1 meter per second.

The campaign wants to cap immigration growth at 0.2 percent, or an addition of around 16,000 people annually, which it says would allow the number of inhabitants to increase to just 8.5 million by the middle of the century.

It also wants to help rein in overpopulation beyond Switzerland's borders, calling for 10 percent of the country's development aid budget to go to family planning initiatives abroad.

The government, all political parties, employers and unions have rejected the initiative, slammed by some as xenophobic and by others as a threat to Switzerland's economy, which depends heavily on immigrant labor.

Christian Luescher, an elected representative of the Liberal Party and co-chair of the committee opposing Ecopop, described the initiative as "absolutely absurd".

"It aims to drastically, linearly and arbitrarily reduce immigration to Switzerland, with absolutely no consideration for the needs of the economy," he said.

AFP - Reuters

(China Daily 12/01/2014 page11)