2008 Swiss referendums

Ten referendums were held in Switzerland during 2008. The first two were held on 24 February on business tax reform and aircraft noise. A further three were held on 1 June on public information campaigns, naturalisation and health reform. The final five were held on 30 November on legalising cannabis, making the pension age flexible, restricting the right of appeal of associations against construction projects, amending the constitutional article on narcotics and eliminating the statute of limitations with respect to pornographic crimes against children. The two February questions were held on: A facultative referendum on the business tax reform II – A coalition of parties and organisations (including the Social Democratic Party of Switzerland, the Swiss Federation of Trade Unions, the Green Party of Switzerland, the Evangelical People's Party of Switzerland, the Christian Social Party, the Swiss Labour Party, ATTAC Switzerland, Travail.Suisse) collected about 65,000 signatures by early July 2007, thus meeting the required number of signatures for a facultative referendum. A people's initiative against fighter aircraft noise in tourism areas – seeking to forbid training flights of fighter aircraft over tourism areas in times of peace. The three referendums in June were held on: people's initiative against publicly funded information campaigns by the government, also known as the "muzzle initiative"; people's initiative for democratic naturalisation, which was trying to retain the right of deciding on the naturalisation of foreign citizens through a vote at municipal level; counterproposal to the withdrawn people's initiative on the Krankenversicherungsgesetz. All three questions were rejected in the referendum. The most controversial initiative was the proposal to allow local communities to hold popular votes on the naturalisation of foreigners with no right of appeal. Switzerland has one of the largest number of foreign residents in Europe with foreigners making up over 20% of residents.