in the first Swiss cantons in 1959, at the federal level in 1971 and, after resistance, in the last canton Appenzell Innerrhoden in 1990. After suffrage at the federal level women quickly rose in political significance, with the first woman on the seven-member Federal Council executive being Elisabeth Kopp who served from 1984 to 1989. The first female president was Ruth Dreifuss, elected in 1998 to become president during 1999. The Swiss president is elected every year from those among the seven member high council and cannot serve two consecutive terms. During the Cold War, Swiss authorities considered the construction of a Swiss nuclear bomb. Leading nuclear physicists at the Federal Institute of Technology Zürich such as Paul Scherrer made this a realistic possibility. In a nationwide referendum held in April 1962, the Swiss people chose not to prohibit nuclear arms in Switzerland. However, financial problems with the defense budget prevented the substantial funds from being allocated, and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1968 was seen as a valid alternative. All remaining plans for building nuclear weapons were dropped by 1988. Domestic In 1979, parts of the Bernese Jura attained independence while remaining in the Federation, forming the new canton of Jura. The Demographics of Switzerland has changed in similar ways as in other states in Western Europe. Since 1945, the population of Switzerland has grown from roughly 4.5 to 7.5 million, mostly between 1945 and 1970, with a brief negative growth in the late 1970s, and a population growth hovering around 0.5% per year since the 1990s, mostly due to immigration. With a population composed of a roughly balanced combination of Roman Catholics and Protestants, together amounting to more than 95%, the population without any religious affiliation has grown to more than 10% in the 2000s, while the Muslim population grew from practically nil to some 4% over the past decades. Italians had been the largest group of resident foreigners since the 1920, but with the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s, large-scale immigration of refugees has changed this picture, and residents with origins in the former Yugoslavia now constitute the largest group of resident foreigners, with some 200,000 people (roughly 3% of the population). Relations with the European Union With the exception of Liechtenstein, Switzerland has been completely surrounded by the European Union since 1995. Swiss-EU relations are a major issue in the country. Swiss voters narrowly rejected a