Swiss voters approved new citizenship regulations in a referendum today.
The regulations make it easier for third-generation immigrants to become citizens of the country, a blow to right-wing nationalists who have expressed fears about issuing passports to more Muslims.
Supporters of the new measure met both criteria needed for victory - they secured the majority of votes for the new regulations among the total number of votes, and the majority of votes in 26 Swiss cantons, the Swiss public service RTS and news agency ATS reported.
AFP estimates that the outcome of the vote is a blow to the right.
In the past 30 years, three attempts to simplify the rules have failed.
In today's referendum, citizens voted on whether the strict rules for issuing citizenship should be simplified.
The new proposal envisages that the third generation of immigrants will be able to avoid certain parts of that bureaucratic procedure.
This will directly affect those who were born in Switzerland, and whose parents, as well as grandparents, had permanent residence in that country.
As the BBC explains, according to the current regulations, if a person was born in Switzerland, it did not guarantee that they would receive citizenship.
Non-Swiss residents usually had to wait 12 years before applying for citizenship.
They were also required to pass tests and conduct interviews at state institutions, which could be expensive.
Supporters of the proposal to simplify the process argue that it is pointless to ask people who were born and have spent their entire lives in Switzerland to prove that they have integrated.
Opponents, however, believe that these measures could lead to additional steps that will eventually allow all non-Swiss residents, of whom there are about 25 percent, to easily obtain citizenship.
One poster by opponents of the plan to simplify the citizenship procedure, showing a woman wearing a burqa, claims that the new proposal could lead to the so-called "Islamization" of the country.
Big cities support the idea of simplifying the rules, while conservative rural areas oppose it, according to the latest public opinion polls.
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