A couple who have lived in Switzerland for 20 years have been denied citizenship, despite fulfilling all the requirements needed to naturalise. Authorities in Unteriberg claimed that they thought the pair, originally from the Netherlands, had failed to make enough friends in the community.
Ronny van Unen and Saskia Scheltes had hoped that the last few weeks would have seen them finally receive their Swiss passports. The Dutch couple have spent the last 20 years living in Switzerland, of which 15 were spent in the town of Unteriberg, Canton Schwyz.
To an outsider, van Unen and Scheltes were perfect candidates for Swiss citizenship. Both had settlement residence permits, had well-exceeded the residency requirements for naturalisation, possessed no criminal record, had claimed no welfare benefits and had learned German to fluency.
However, this was not enough for the town's Naturalisation Commission, which rejected their application. At an appeal heard at a Municipal Council meeting on April 24, the couple were once again told they would not be Swiss citizens any time soon.
Given the couple’s impeccable efforts to naturalise, questions soon emerged as to why they were not given the go-ahead.
Speaking to the Boten der Urschweiz, Unteriberg Mayor Ruedi Keller explained that "we all got the impression that the two didn't really identify with Switzerland; they weren't convincing." Keller, who is also a member of the Naturalisation Commission, added that the pair were not able to name enough friends or acquaintances in the village, had not participated in social events and were not clued up on the hot-button political issues in the community.
This is heavily disputed by the couple, who wrote in a statement that they answered 10 of the 12 integration questions correctly during their application. Van Unen is a member of the Swiss Alpine Club and regularly participates in hikes around the local mountains. He is also a former member of an aviation club, and together with his wife, they spend their time restoring Swiss watches.
With their citizenship application rejected, van Unen and Scheltes are expected to appeal their case to the cantonal administrative court in Schwyz. For now, their story aligns with the experience of many expats who try to integrate: in the latest survey from InterNations, internationals reported that Switzerland is one of the hardest places on Earth to make local friends.
Though some may be shocked at the ease with which the local council rejected the Dutch couple's application, it is far from the first time that Swiss citizenship has been rejected for strange reasons - from misplacing where Swiss cheese comes from to calling an Alphorn a Schwizerhorn. Some more recent incidents include a man who was initially refused naturalisation in Jura because he mowed his lawn on public holidays.
In 2020, a man from Cape Verde was refused citizenship in Fribourg on the basis that he was once stopped and warned by police for not clearing enough ice from his windshield. In 2017, a Turkish woman was rejected on the grounds that, among other things, she shopped at Aldi and Migros instead of the local butcher and baker.