The plan would have forced the Swiss National Bank to buy massive amounts of gold within five years and likely causing the global price for the valuable metal to jump. The campaign wants to cap immigration growth at 0.2 percent, or an addition of around 16,000 people annually, which it says would allow the number of inhabitants to increase to just 8.5 million by the middle of the century. The measure would have required the government to reduce immigration from about 80,000 to 16,000 people a year. 'Ecopop' 
 
 The immigration proposal was dubbed the Ecopop measure, after Switzerland's 40-year-old Ecopop movement which seeks to link environmental protection with controlling population growth. Polls hint voters are also likely to reject a bid to scrap special tax breaks for rich foreigners living but not working in Switzerland, who today can choose to be levied on their spending rather than income.
– Switzerland has rejected a proposed rule to make major cuts to immigration—a measure that supporters backed as eco-friendly. It called for limiting immigration growth to 0.2% of the population each year in order to protect the country's beauty against overcrowding, AFP reports. That would have meant cutting the number of immigrants from about 80,000 per year to 16,000, the BBC notes, in a country where some 23% of the population is foreign. The rejection by 74% of voters comes as little surprise following polls on the matter. All the country's political parties opposed it, AFP notes, citing xenophobia and economic concerns. But in Switzerland, if supporters of a movement get enough signatures, the country must hold a referendum on the matter, the BBC reports. And immigration wasn't the only issue the country voted on today, the AP reports. Another effort called for the Swiss national bank to keep a fifth of its reserves in the form of gold, a move which would have required vast gold purchases in the coming years had it not been opposed by 78% of voters.