Only a small number of people entitled to a Swiss passport - due to being third-generation residents - actually apply for it.
Since the law change in 2018, any grandchild of foreign residents can apply for a passport, but fewer than 2,000 out of a potential 25,000 have done so.
The head of the Federal Migration Commission, Walter Leimgruber, says the reason is a lack of interest coupled with complicated paperwork.
He says many are already EU nationals, and so have no restrictions in Switzerland and don’t see the point – also the documents required can be hard to come by. Applicants need their grandparents birth certificates, proof they held a Swiss resident permit and then proof their parents were at school in Switzerland for at least 5 years.
But some politicians are rejecting calls to make the paperwork less cumbersome. One Swiss People’s Party member of parliament, Barbara Steinemann, says the requirements should not be simplified just because the law change is not having the effect the left wanted.
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