13 / 16
13
however, a firm hires a 25-year-old German for the
same job, this is not considered salary dumping. This
is a side effect of immigration, and the administration
must offer solutions in order to avoid effects like this in
the future, explained Sauter.
Cure taxes for migrants
In the following discussion with the public, Eichen-
berger was asked to describe a measure he would favor
that would be able to attain a political majority in
order to improve the situation. He then presented his
idea of a general immigration tax. All migrants would
have to pay something between 12 and 15 Swiss francs
in the first three to five years in Switzerland. This is
not a problem, he explained, as they still pay even less
taxes in Switzerland than in their own countries, even
though they earn double as much. In the end, the
migrants benefit from the high quality of location in
Switzerland, which would justify their contribution to
the costs for migration. We should not give national
assets away, but instead allocate them in such a way
that Switzerland has more and create an incentive to
attract more foreigners, concluded Eichenberger.
Reiner Eichenberger did not agree at all with Gattiker’s
positive assessment of Swiss migration policy.
Bruno Sauter pointed to several malfunctioning areas in the
system.
Panel Discussion: A New Migration Policy for
Switzerland
Gattiker’s presentation was followed by a stimulated
and at times heated discussion between Reiner
Eichenberger, Bruno Sauter, and Gattiker himself. In
particular Reiner Eichenberger, professor for the
theory of finance and economic policy at the Univer-
sity of Fribourg, expressed his displeasure with Gat-
tiker’s statements.
Eichenberger criticized Gattiker’s comments on the
report of the Swiss Federal Council on the costs of
immigration. According to Eichenberger, the report is
based on false calculations, and the claim that immi-
gration does not produce any costs is plainly wrong.
He mentioned the scarcity of infrastructure and land,
as well as a conflict of goals with respect to CO
2
policies. “It is no longer beneficial for the populace to
demand a high quality of location, because the qual-
ity of location is practically obliterated by the high
immigration rate,” commented Eichenberger.
People searching for jobs are disadvantaged
Bruno Sauter, general director of the Office for Econ-
omy and Labor of the Canton of Zurich, also put
Gattiker’s positive balance on Swiss migration policies
into perspective. He pointed to the difficult situation
of people searching for jobs who acutely experience
the problems of immigration. According to Sauter, the
difficulties stem from differentiating between the
effects of immigration and the structural changes in
the economy. The potential for conflict is large. Sauter
cited statistics on job seekers in Zurich. In addition to
the 40,000 persons seeking jobs, of which 25% have
low qualifications, there are up to 9,000 refugees with
an average of seven years of elementary schooling
who also must be integrated into the labor market.
The labor market cannot absorb them.
The state secretary for migration showed understand-
ing for this problem, but also pointed to the many
advantages that Switzerland had through migration.
Sauter agreed with Gattiker that the migration steering
here generally works well. However, there are certain
areas that malfunction, in particular with regard to
enforcing the associated measures. He again cited an
example from his daily work: A 50-year-old sales
employee should earn a salary of CHF 6,900 in accor-
dance with the Swiss Association of Commercial
Employees, an amount that no enterprise pays. These
are presently all salary dumping cases, said Sauter. If,
Dialogue and Events
Podium