Authorities in Finland are planning to close their common border with Russia, citing irregular migration concerns.
Finland’s Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said that he believes Moscow was permitting migrants to cross into Finland, in spite of the fact they do not hold proper travel documents, SchengenVisaInfo.com reports.
According to a report from InfoMigrants, Orpo stressed that this was a tactic planned to destabilise Helsinki. The accession of Finland to NATO-led authorities in Russia threatened its neighbour country that they would take retaliatory measures.
This seems like a deliberate decision.[This] government’s message is clear, we want to take care of the security of our border.
Finland’s Interior Minister, Mari Rantanen, said that since August, the number of crossings at the country’s southeastern border has increased significantly, indicating that Russia has changed its border policy and enforcement, according to a report from Al Jazeera.
According to her, Russia has begun permitting undocumented people to access the border zone and reach the crossing stations where they can request asylum in Finland.
Maybe [Russian officials] are annoyed by something in Finland`s activities. You have to ask the Russian authorities about that. We do hope that Russia changes its policy back as it was before.
The Finnish Border Guard noted that a total of 91 individuals with irregular travel documents reached the southeast border crossing point in Finland since August. The same source stressed that those persons lacked travel documents, using Russia as a transit country.
As part of efforts to tighten controls on its common border with Russia, the border guard of Finland, in February this year, announced the construction of a pilot fence about three kilometres.
Finland shares a 1,340km (833-mile) border with Russia, which also serves as the European Union’s external border.
The Finnish Border Guard announced in October this year, that the Eastern border pilot project barrier has been completed, with authorities activating the nearly three-kilometre.
Based on the experimental period of the operational use of the short barrier fence, the whole formed by the road, the fence, and the technical control is the modern era of border security. Finnish Border Guard
It highlighted that the monitoring and analysis were also carried out during the construction emphasising that authorities would be immediately informed about those who cross the border in the future.
The 1,340-kilometer (832-mile) border between Finland and Russia functions as both the external border of the European Union and the eastern flank of NATO.