Free movement and Ticino's political answer

The free movement agreement

The legal basis of today's cross-border labour market is the Agreement of 21 June 1999 between the Swiss Confederation and the European Community and its Member States on the Free Movement of Persons (AFMP). It was signed as part of the first package of bilateral agreements and entered into force on 1 June 2002.¹ For the cross-border commuters from Italy the agreement brought three changes. It abolished, after transitional periods, the priority of resident workers and the control of wages and working conditions that had applied to each individual permit. It abolished the frontier zones within which commuters had to live and work. It also extended the European rules on the coordination of social security systems to Switzerland. Full free movement for the citizens of the fifteen old member States, Italy among them, began on 1 June 2007.² From that date a Ticinese employer could hire an Italian resident on the same terms as a Swiss resident, subject only to a notification and to the minimum wage rules described above.

The effect on Ticino was immediate. The number of cross-border commuters, which had been roughly stable in the 1990s, began to rise in the mid-2000s and continued to rise through the financial crisis of 2008 and the strong franc of 2011 and 2015. The strong franc made Swiss wages even more attractive when converted into euros, while it put Ticino's exporters and retailers under pressure and encouraged them to recruit cheaper staff from across the border. In public perception, free movement, the strong franc and the arrival of commuters in service jobs merged into a single grievance. The Lega dei Ticinesi, founded in 1991, and the cantonal section of the Swiss People's Party made the frontalieri a central theme of their campaigns.³

The mass immigration initiative of 2014

On 9 February 2014 Swiss voters accepted the popular initiative "Against mass immigration" by 50.3 per cent and a majority of seventeen cantons. The initiative inserted Art. 121a into the Federal Constitution, which requires Switzerland to manage immigration autonomously through annual ceilings and quotas, with priority for Swiss citizens, and which explicitly includes cross-border commuters among the persons to be covered by the quotas.⁴ In Ticino the initiative obtained 68.17 per cent of the votes, the highest share of any canton.⁵ Wikipedia gives the national figures as 1,463,854 votes in favour and 1,444,552 against, a margin of 19,302 votes by calculation, at a turnout of 56.6 per cent.⁶

Because Art. 121a Cst. was incompatible with the free movement agreement, the Federal Council and Parliament decided to implement it in a way that preserved the agreement. The implementing legislation adopted by Parliament on 16 December 2016 introduced no quotas. Its central instrument is the duty to announce vacancies: since 1 July 2018 employers must notify the public employment service of vacancies in occupational types in which unemployment reaches a threshold and may not advertise these positions elsewhere for five working days. The threshold was set at 8 per cent at first and lowered to 5 per cent from 1 January 2020.⁷ The duty applies to all employers in Switzerland and is not limited to Ticino. Its practical effect in the canton has been modest, because many of the occupations in which cross-border commuters work are not on the list and because the duty to announce does not oblige an employer to hire the candidates proposed by the employment office.

Notes

1. State Secretariat for Migration (SEM), "Accordo sulla libera circolazione delle persone Svizzera–UE/AELS", https://www.sem.admin.ch/sem/it/home/themen/fza_schweiz-eu-efta.html. The agreement is published as SR 0.142.112.681. ↩
2. Ibid. AFMP, Art. 10 paras. 1–2 (quotas for five years and priority of resident workers and control of wage and working conditions for two years after entry into force), https://www.droit-bilingue.ch/de-it/0.1/0.14/0.142.112.681-10-13.html; SEM, "Permesso per frontalieri G (cittadini UE/AELS)" (above) ("Le zone di frontiera sono state abolite"). ↩
3. Andrea Ghiringhelli, "Lega dei ticinesi", in Dizionario storico della Svizzera, version of 10 March 2017, https://hls-dhs-dss.ch/it/articles/008030/ (founded in 1991 by Giuliano Bignasca and Flavio Maspoli; opposition to European integration and to inforestierimento). On the campaign against cross-border commuters see the initiative "Prima i nostri!" below. ↩
4. State Secretariat for Migration (SEM), "Attuazione dell'articolo 121a Cost.", https://www.sem.admin.ch/sem/it/home/themen/fza_schweiz-eu-efta/umsetzung_vb_zuwander ung.html. Art. 121a paras. 2–3 Cst., English and Italian text at https://www.droit-bilingue.ch/en-it/1/10/101-121a-149.html (para. 3: "the limits and quotas must include cross-border commuters"; "essi devono comprendere anche i frontalieri"); Swissvotes, vote no. 580, https://swissvotes.ch/vote/580.00 (50.33 per cent yes; rejected only in Basel-Stadt, Fribourg, Geneva, Jura, Neuchâtel, Vaud, Valais, Zug and Zurich). ↩
5. "Limitazione, le reazioni ticinesi", RSI, 27 September 2020, https://www.rsi.ch/info/ticino-grigioni-e-insubria/Limitazione-le-reazioni-ticinesi--1229809.html (68.17 per cent in 2014). That this was the highest share of any canton: Wikipedia, "Eidgenössische Volksinitiative «Gegen Masseneinwanderung»", https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eidgenössische_Volksinitiative_«Gegen_Masseneinwanderung» ("Die höchste Zustimmung erhielt die Initiative im Tessin"), used as a last resort. ↩
6. Wikipedia, "2014 Swiss immigration initiative", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Swiss_immigration_initiative (consulted as a last resort). The margin in the text is calculated from the two vote counts; Wikipedia states a slightly different figure. ↩
7. SEM, "Attuazione dell'articolo 121a Cost." (above). Ordinance of 16 January 1991 on Employment Placement and the Hiring Out of Staff (AVV), SR 823.111, Art. 53a para. 1 (threshold of 5 per cent), https://www.droit-bilingue.ch/de-it/8/82/823.111-53a-65.html, and Art. 53b (duty to notify; publication elsewhere only after five working days), https://www.droit-bilingue.ch/de-it/8/82/823.111-53b-66.html. ↩

For general information only. This article does not constitute legal or tax advice, does not replace advice on an individual case and creates no lawyer-client relationship. It reflects the legal position as of August 2025.