Collage of two pictures taken from Wikipedia.

On February 9th, in Switzerland a new referendum, pride of the direct Helvetian democracy, will take place.

Two questions… plus one additional, only in Canton Argovia. The Argovian proposal wants to increase from three to ten years the minimum possible period without receiving benefits from the social assistance (i.e. without unemployment) to be able to apply for the Swiss citizenship.

This strict requirement is even overruling the federal laws which currently accept three years only.

Why? They say that only in that way the possible applicants for the Swiss passport would really prove their “Swissness”. In a country where jobs are quite flexible and the possibility to fire a worker does not require particular justifications, the Argovian statement is quite… disputable!