The border between Finland and Russia has been closed since the end of November. Helsinki accuses Moscow of letting undocumented migrants through to destabilize the country, in retaliation after the Scandinavian country’s accession to NATO in April 2023. The Finnish government has announced that it is preparing new measures to strengthen security at its border.
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It’s a crisis that has lasted for three months now between Helsinki and Moscow. Thousands of migrants have been waiting to cross into the Scandinavian country since Russia. Here is the alert which was officially launched this Tuesday, February 20 by the Finnish Minister of the Interior, Mari Rantanen. “ We have information that thousands of people are waiting to cross into Finland from the Russian side », declared the minister during a press conference. This represents ” a threat to society “, she added. The latter, however, refused to specify how the Finnish authorities had obtained this information.
But the reality is very different, according to Jussi Laine, professor at the University of Eastern Finland and specialist in border issues. “ There is no hard evidence to support this. The numbers she talks about are just estimates, not verified data. There are currently only a few migrants waiting to cross to the Finnish side », he estimates at the microphone of Julien Chavanne,of RFI’s international service.
Tightening of asylum rights, strengthening of border patrols…
However, the Finnish government is preparing people’s minds for a tougher asylum law. Migrants could be held at the 1,340 km-long border while their files are examined, according to the Interior Ministry. The latter declared on Monday that he would quickly put in place new laws in order to strengthen border security and fight against the exploitation of migratory flows by Moscow. The proposal should be presented in Parliament in March.
Finland has already strengthened its patrols along its border. The European monitoring agency Frontex, for its part, deployed 55 agents on site in early December. The Nordic country also began the construction of a three-meter-high fence over 200 kilometers on its border in February 2023, to stem potential future population movements, details InfoMigrants.
But for Professor Jussi Laine, this reaction from Helsinki is already a victory for Russia. “ Clearly, it shook Finnish society. And the government’s reaction was very strong. So if Russia’s goal was to destabilize and shake up the Finns, in this case they succeeded. But in the end, migrants are not the problem », blurts the teacher.
Border closed at least until April 14
More than 1,300 asylum seekers from Yemen, Somalia or Syria entered Finland from Russia between August and December 2023, according to Finnish border authorities. An unusual volume for the small Nordic country of 5.5 million inhabitants, which usually has around ten asylum seekers each month. at this border.
The Scandinavian country has been accusing Moscow for several weeks of orchestrating a migration crisis on its doorstep. For its part, the Kremlin denies and rejects these accusations. Even so, the border with Russia will remain closed at least until April 14, the government said, if not longer. Because according to the government, with better weather, migrants could be more encouraged to cross the border, with the strong support of the Russian authorities.
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(And with agencies)