Swiss voters agreed Sunday to prolong free movement of labour with the European Union, extending the policy to workers from EU newcomers Bulgaria and Romania, referendum results showed.
Some 59.6 percent said yes to the government's motion extending the agreement, while 40.4 percent voted no, according to official results from country's 26 cantons released through the Swiss news agency ATS.
The Swiss government, along with most of the country's political, business and social establishment had been pressing for the extension of the accord with the EU, which came into force in 2002. But the extent of their victory suprised obeservers, after the last opinion poll 10 days ago had indicated only a slender lead for the pro-European camp. Campaigning over the past two months had pitted non-member Switzerland's economic interests against traditional popular fears about immigration and the neutral Alpine nation's prized independence whipped up by the hard right.
The fraught global economic climate, which has hit prosperous Switzerland in recent months, had added to the uncertainty. Free movement - which also allows Swiss citizens to freely take up jobs in the EU - is widely credited with helping fuel Switzerland's economic boom in recent years by overcoming a shortage of skilled labour.
The Swiss government and Brussels had warned that a 'no' vote would have torn apart a wider range of interlinked agreements on trade, agriculture, and transport that add about one percent to Switzerland's economic growth.
Opponents in the Swiss People's Party (SVP) had especially raised the spectre of a surge in immigration from Romania and Bulgaria, which they dubbed "Europe's third world," and a threat to Swiss jobs.
But many Swiss observers said the fears about the deteriorating economic climate appeared to have fuelled acceptance of the whole package instead.
"I think that the leap into the unknown, fears about unforeseen consquences probably prompted those who were hesitant to vote yes," SVP parliamentarian Guy Parmelin admitted on Swiss television as the results came through.
More than one million of Switzerland's 1.62 million foreign residents come from the EU and western Europe. Their number has surged by nearly 200,000 since limits on employing EU citizens were gradually lifted from 2002.