Voter analysis: Swiss youth less interested in EU membership

The analysis looked at post-election surveys of voters from 1995 to 2019. Keystone Martin Ruetschi

Young voters in Switzerland are more critical of the value of European Union (EU) membership than they were 30 years ago, according to an analysis of voting records by Swiss public broadcaster SRF.

The analysisExternal link, published on Friday, looked at post-election surveys of voters from 1995 to 2019. In the 1990s, more than half (59.2%) of voters aged 18-34 wanted to join the EU while just over 30% rejected the idea.

Since then, enthusiasm for the EU has declined dramatically, writes SRF. In 2019, just 6.5% wanted to join the EU while more than three-quarters (77.9%) wanted to remain independent. The decline can also be observed in other age groups but not to such an extreme as with younger voters.

One reason may be that accession to the EU was only seriously discussed in the 1990s. “After the European Economic Area vote in 1992, the European question became a central political question,” political scientist Michael Hermann told SRF. This was a reaction to the opening up after the Cold War. “For many, Europe was something to aspire to,” he added.

Starting at the turn of the century, support for EU accession declined sharply. Hermann suggests this could be because of the successful bilateral agreements between Switzerland and the EU as well as growing scepticism about the free movement of people and the Euro crisis affecting many EU economies.

For young voters today, EU accession hasn’t been something up for discussion. Fabio Wasserfallen, a professor at the University of Bern, added that young Swiss today benefit from the ability to travel and work freely throughout Europe. They don’t know otherwise, and therefore don’t see what they would gain from EU membership.

“Joining is particularly attractive for young people when they see a benefit,” said Wasserfallen. “It is difficult for Swiss youth today to see why they need EU accession for their life prospects.”

The analysis also looked at voters across political parties and found that the Social Democratic Party remains most in favour of EU accession. In 2019, Some 43% of voters of any age group from this party were in favour, compared with 75% in 1995. At the other end of the scale, only 1.5% of voters of the right-wing Swiss People’s Party supported EU membership, a drop from 11.3% in 1995.

The vote analysis was carried out by Smartvote on behalf of SRF and relied on data compiled by SwissUbaseExternal link, which archives data from Swiss universities.