Support from an unexpected ally: Radio NRJ (you guessed it, Energy), a commercial pop radio station, is out to educate its Swiss listeners about Becoming Swiss.
“Energy raffles off Swiss citizenship!” is their gag of the week. Obviously a radio station has nothing to do with the naturalization process; if you read the fine print, you’ll see that they offer to pay the costs associated with the process for a candidate who meets the legal criteria.
Never one to miss a trend, Radio Energy is holding “castings” to find their ideal candidate. And the boulevard press is up in arms at this provocation.
Radio Energy moderator Roman Kilchsperger, who is a member of the Swiss entertainment elite often referred to as the Cervelat-Prominenz (lit.”famous hot dogs”, fig. world-famous in Switzerland), defended his gag in press interviews. We can all learn something, he says: how does naturalization work? Who checks their background and decides? What does the whole process cost?
Mr Kilchsperger and the Energy team did not come up with this idea from reading my blog, alas. The attention-getting scheme comes ahead of a referendum on February 12 that would grant third-generation residents a simplified naturalization process. These issues tend to bring out the word in populist politics, as one might guess. The Swiss People’s Party (SVP) has outdone itself with a poster that scares not just voters, but also children.
Third-generation residents: this would be my ten-year-old son’s children, assuming we would choose not to naturalize but just stay living here because it’s nice. And my son who was born and grew up here, and stays living here because it’s the home he knows. His children, who would be born here and socialized here. That’s the third generation.
And the referendum isn’t suggesting passports at birth or anything radical like that. The simplified process means candidates must be well-integrated, speak a national language, have been born in Switzerland, have a permanent residence permit, attended school for at least five years in Switzerland and under 25 years of age. One of their parents must have lived at least ten years in Switzerland including at least five years of school. Plus a grandparent must also have either been born in Switzerland or have been granted permanent residency.
Recent statistics suggest Switzerland currently has 24,650 third-generation immigrants who meet these criteria. (Dear SVP: I doubt any of them are burka-wearers.)
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