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On 14 June, Switzerland votes on the "No 10-Million Switzerland" initiative. Climbing rents, packed trains, density: the diagnosis is real. But the remedy locks a population cap into the Constitution, threatens the bilateral agreements and — under demographic cover — makes Switzerland vote against Europe. Why an SME founder, son of a committed European, will say No.
My father, Jacques Janin, was born on the La Bérallaz farm above Montheron, in the Jorat hills I hold dear. As director of Prométerre, the Vaud farmers' organisation, from 1985 to 2001 — shaped at the University of Lausanne by Henri Rieben, one of French-speaking Switzerland's great pioneers of European thought — he spent his life defending an idea the farming world preferred to ignore: that the future of Swiss agriculture lay within Europe, not against it.
His greatest handicap was never the strength of his reasoning. It was language. His ideas struggled to cross the Sarine — the river that marks Switzerland's French–German divide — because he had never mastered Swiss German, and on the far side of the Röstigraben, in German-speaking Switzerland, he was only half heard.
That is why, on his advice, I left the canton of Vaud. I learned German and Swiss German: ten years in St. Gallen, ten in Zurich. Today I work in German, English and French. For twenty years I built the bridge my father had lacked. So when I am asked to build a wall, I know what it costs — because I know the price of the bridge.
On 14 June, I will vote No. Not because the questions raised by the SVP, Switzerland's largest party, are illegitimate — quite the opposite.
Let's be honest: the unease is real. Rents are climbing, trains are packed, density weighs on daily life, and many feel a loss of control. To dismiss the roughly 47 percent who intend to vote Yes as backward would be both unjust and politically blind. On the diagnosis, the SVP is not wrong.
But a right question does not make a right answer.
The initiative caps the population at ten million before 2050. It reduces nothing: at best, it slows. It will not empty a single crowded train, and its mechanism only kicks in around 2031. Housing and transport have other causes — construction, zoning, speculation, rail investment — that a population cap does not touch.
Above all, the instrument is blunt: renegotiate the free-movement agreement with the EU and, failing that, terminate it — which, through the so-called guillotine clause, brings down the entire first package of bilateral agreements. The remedy is therefore either cosmetic (never used, like the 2014 initiative) or explosive. There is no fine-tuning in between.
In other words: you are being told about crowded trains; you are being made to vote not on Europe, but against it.
What the campaign would rather not say: those who know the subject best — in the fields and on the factory floor — reject the retreat.
The SVP casts itself as the guardian of the land and the homeland. Yet one of the most respected farming leaders in Vaud argued, figures in hand, that the land itself needs Europe.
The same fault line runs through industry. The SVP's own captains of industry are split. Peter Spuhler, head of Stadler Rail, is voting No — publicly — because his company lives off Europe and off free movement. Magdalena Martullo-Blocher, who leads Ems-Chemie, backs the initiative yet stays all but invisible during the campaign. The map of their factories explains the disagreement:
Sector — Stadler Rail: rail vehicles. Ems-Chemie: specialty chemicals.
Employees — Stadler Rail: ~14,800 (≈ ¾ abroad). Ems-Chemie: ~2,800 (not labour-intensive).
Footprint — Stadler Rail: production network integrated into Europe. Ems-Chemie: pivot toward China and the US.
Exposure to free movement — Stadler Rail: very high. Ems-Chemie: low.
Leader's stance — Spuhler → NO, publicly. Martullo-Blocher → YES, in the background.
From the field to the factory, those who truly master the issue reject closing off. Which leaves one question: who, exactly, will pay for the retreat?
The big corporate bosses will cushion it: they can offshore, absorb quotas, mobilise entire departments. SMEs cannot. Nor can I. To engage fully and more freely in Europe — and to soften the shock to come, should it materialise — I split my structure in two: one company in Switzerland and another in the European Union, in Estonia. Had Switzerland joined the EEA or the EU, that second company would have had no reason to exist. It remains, today, the least bad solution for a Swiss SME that refuses to turn inward — and a Yes on 14 June would only widen the very gap that makes it necessary. The retreat has a cost, and it is not its champions who will bear it.
Make no mistake: I am not defending the status quo. There is a third way that answers the real concerns without slamming the door on Europe.
It rests on a few levers. The safeguard clause negotiated in the third package of bilateral agreements (Bilaterals III), which allows immigration to be curbed in the event of serious economic or social difficulties — region by region, sector by sector — without destroying the bilateral path: braking without breaking. The mobilisation of the domestic labour pool, which tackles the cause (the need to recruit abroad) rather than the symptom. Investment in affordable housing and infrastructure, which is entirely a matter of domestic policy. And — a paradox the SVP never highlights — an asylum policy that runs through more European cooperation, not less.
You can take back control without slamming the door.
My father passed on to me a conviction and a method. The conviction: for a small country, Europe is a horizon, not a threat. The method: build bridges rather than walls — even at the price of twenty years and a foreign language. I remain convinced that European integration is, today, the best path for Switzerland.
My father dreamed of an agriculture anchored to Europe. For lack of membership in the EEA or the EU, I had to anchor part of my own business to the Union myself — from Tallinn. It is not a refuge I hope never to use: it is already, today, the least bad solution for an SME that refuses to retreat. I would simply have preferred not to need it.
Sources: Swiss federal voting explanations and communications; polls by SRG/gfs.bern and 20 Minuten/Tamedia; financial and corporate communications from Stadler Rail and Ems-Chemie; public statements by Peter Spuhler (SRF, CH-Media); profiles of Jacques Janin in Le Temps, Tribune de Genève and 24 heures, and his own books.
His greatest handicap was never the strength of his reasoning. It was language. His ideas struggled to cross the Sarine — the river that marks Switzerland's French–German divide — because he had never mastered Swiss German, and on the far side of the Röstigraben, in German-speaking Switzerland, he was only half heard.
That is why, on his advice, I left the canton of Vaud. I learned German and Swiss German: ten years in St. Gallen, ten in Zurich. Today I work in German, English and French. For twenty years I built the bridge my father had lacked. So when I am asked to build a wall, I know what it costs — because I know the price of the bridge.
On 14 June, I will vote No. Not because the questions raised by the SVP, Switzerland's largest party, are illegitimate — quite the opposite.
The diagnosis is not wrong
Let's be honest: the unease is real. Rents are climbing, trains are packed, density weighs on daily life, and many feel a loss of control. To dismiss the roughly 47 percent who intend to vote Yes as backward would be both unjust and politically blind. On the diagnosis, the SVP is not wrong.
But a right question does not make a right answer.
The remedy does not cure the ailment
The initiative caps the population at ten million before 2050. It reduces nothing: at best, it slows. It will not empty a single crowded train, and its mechanism only kicks in around 2031. Housing and transport have other causes — construction, zoning, speculation, rail investment — that a population cap does not touch.
Above all, the instrument is blunt: renegotiate the free-movement agreement with the EU and, failing that, terminate it — which, through the so-called guillotine clause, brings down the entire first package of bilateral agreements. The remedy is therefore either cosmetic (never used, like the 2014 initiative) or explosive. There is no fine-tuning in between.
In other words: you are being told about crowded trains; you are being made to vote not on Europe, but against it.
The double rejection
What the campaign would rather not say: those who know the subject best — in the fields and on the factory floor — reject the retreat.
A family conviction
Jacques Janin never hid his European convictions. In his book, whose title says it all — «La Suisse et l'Union européenne sont faites l'une pour l'autre» ("Switzerland and the European Union are made for each other," published in French and German) — he distilled his thesis into a single line: "A Swiss agriculture that is not euro-competitive is doomed to wither." He recalled that in 1996, six hundred farmers gathered at Cully to ask the federal government to accelerate rapprochement with the Union — and lamented, even then, a farming world "captured by the SVP" and tempted to turn inward.
The SVP casts itself as the guardian of the land and the homeland. Yet one of the most respected farming leaders in Vaud argued, figures in hand, that the land itself needs Europe.
The same fault line runs through industry. The SVP's own captains of industry are split. Peter Spuhler, head of Stadler Rail, is voting No — publicly — because his company lives off Europe and off free movement. Magdalena Martullo-Blocher, who leads Ems-Chemie, backs the initiative yet stays all but invisible during the campaign. The map of their factories explains the disagreement:
Sector — Stadler Rail: rail vehicles. Ems-Chemie: specialty chemicals.
Employees — Stadler Rail: ~14,800 (≈ ¾ abroad). Ems-Chemie: ~2,800 (not labour-intensive).
Footprint — Stadler Rail: production network integrated into Europe. Ems-Chemie: pivot toward China and the US.
Exposure to free movement — Stadler Rail: very high. Ems-Chemie: low.
Leader's stance — Spuhler → NO, publicly. Martullo-Blocher → YES, in the background.
"I don't understand why the SVP supports this initiative." — Peter Spuhler
From the field to the factory, those who truly master the issue reject closing off. Which leaves one question: who, exactly, will pay for the retreat?
Who pays the bill
The big corporate bosses will cushion it: they can offshore, absorb quotas, mobilise entire departments. SMEs cannot. Nor can I. To engage fully and more freely in Europe — and to soften the shock to come, should it materialise — I split my structure in two: one company in Switzerland and another in the European Union, in Estonia. Had Switzerland joined the EEA or the EU, that second company would have had no reason to exist. It remains, today, the least bad solution for a Swiss SME that refuses to turn inward — and a Yes on 14 June would only widen the very gap that makes it necessary. The retreat has a cost, and it is not its champions who will bear it.
A middle path does exist
Make no mistake: I am not defending the status quo. There is a third way that answers the real concerns without slamming the door on Europe.
It rests on a few levers. The safeguard clause negotiated in the third package of bilateral agreements (Bilaterals III), which allows immigration to be curbed in the event of serious economic or social difficulties — region by region, sector by sector — without destroying the bilateral path: braking without breaking. The mobilisation of the domestic labour pool, which tackles the cause (the need to recruit abroad) rather than the symptom. Investment in affordable housing and infrastructure, which is entirely a matter of domestic policy. And — a paradox the SVP never highlights — an asylum policy that runs through more European cooperation, not less.
You can take back control without slamming the door.
Openness against fear
My father passed on to me a conviction and a method. The conviction: for a small country, Europe is a horizon, not a threat. The method: build bridges rather than walls — even at the price of twenty years and a foreign language. I remain convinced that European integration is, today, the best path for Switzerland.
My father dreamed of an agriculture anchored to Europe. For lack of membership in the EEA or the EU, I had to anchor part of my own business to the Union myself — from Tallinn. It is not a refuge I hope never to use: it is already, today, the least bad solution for an SME that refuses to retreat. I would simply have preferred not to need it.
Sources: Swiss federal voting explanations and communications; polls by SRG/gfs.bern and 20 Minuten/Tamedia; financial and corporate communications from Stadler Rail and Ems-Chemie; public statements by Peter Spuhler (SRF, CH-Media); profiles of Jacques Janin in Le Temps, Tribune de Genève and 24 heures, and his own books.
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