If the crisis drives Ukrainians out of their country, the effects would be felt elsewhere than here – this would prepare Finland for the situation

The tense situation and the threat of an attack on Ukraine could change rapidly. Is Finland prepared for a scenario in which the crisis would drive Ukrainian civilians away from their homes?

The Ministry of the Interior and the Finnish Immigration Service say that the situation is being closely monitored and contingency plans are in place in the event of an increase in the number of asylum seekers, but preparedness is part of normal operations.

– At this stage, we are monitoring the situation intensively, and if the situation starts to get worse, we will act in the ways required by the situation, says the head of the reception unit Pekka Nuutinen About the migraine.

According to Nuutinen, the first would be to increase the capacity of reception centers. According to Nuutinen, there are currently more than 3,000 beds in Finnish reception centers.

– Capacity has been reduced since 2016, when “customer numbers” have decreased, Nuutinen states.

If the situation in Ukraine escalates badly and drives civilians to flee the country, Nuutinen does not believe that Finland will be the first country to which asylum seekers would be directed to a large extent.

– But there could also be spill-over effects on Finland.

A specialist from the Immigration Department of the Ministry of the Interior has the same lines Mari Helenius.

– We have estimated that people fleeing the conflict in the first instance are likely to flee internally, says Mari Helenius, a specialist at the Ministry of the Interior’s Immigration Department.

Next, according to Helenius, the movement would be most visible in Ukraine’s neighboring countries and those EU countries that already have a large Ukrainian minority, such as Poland, Germany and the Czech Republic.

In Poland, for example, according to Helenius, the size of the Ukrainian minority is in the order of more than one million, while about 7,000 Ukrainian citizens live permanently in Finland.

Instead, thousands of Ukrainians go to Finland every year for seasonal work in greenhouses and plantations. According to Helenius, there were 15,500 Ukrainian seasonal workers in Finland last year.

– In Finland, I would be more concerned about the situation of seasonal workers right now, as Ukrainians are the most important group of seasonal workers in Finland for agriculture and forestry.

The first Ukrainian seasonal workers arrive in greenhouses as early as March. We are now living in mid-February, and no one knows for sure how the situation in Ukraine will develop.

– Ukrainians are the lion’s share of all seasonal workers in Finland, and if they did not come, there would be a shortage of labor on the farms, Helenius says.

While the situation in Ukraine may change in one direction or another every week, Helenius is worried about how seasonal workers will be able to leave the country.

– And what is the willingness to leave, if your own country is in crisis and the family there, then the situation can be difficult even for those who leave, Helenius ponders.

According to Migr’s communications, this year Ukrainians have applied for seasonal work certificates in the normal way, at least for the time being.

Of Ukraine’s neighbors, at least Poland says it is prepared to receive Ukrainian refugees. Deputy Minister of the Interior Maciej Wąsik estimates earlier in February that Poland is preparing to receive up to one million Ukrainian refugees.

Also a senior researcher at the Foreign Policy Institute Saila Heinikoski noted the words “real refugees” and a change in the attitude of Poland compared to, for example, last autumn, when asylum seekers appeared on the Polish border with the help of Belarus.

However, Heinikoski does not believe that Poland will be able to receive a million Ukrainian refugees.

– If the situation went very bad, it could be that a million people would flee Ukraine. Poland hardly has the capacity to receive everyone, but the whole of the EU must certainly be involved and make internal transfers.

Senior researcher Heinikoski thinks that the attitude and political debate in Finland could be more favorable compared to, for example, last autumn’s border debate, which took place due to the situation in Belarus and Lithuania’s neighboring countries.

– It would be quite interesting to see the difference in rhetoric, how to treat it differently. Admittedly, the situation would be different from, for example, Belarus’s efforts to assist people at the EU’s borders. Maybe you should take a slightly different approach to that, Heinikoski said.

The fact that Ukraine is in a way close to Europe and that the crisis is affecting Finland in any case could help to create a favorable attitude.

– But still, each asylum application should be processed individually, regardless of the country of origin. And anyone who comes to seek asylum can have the same right to protection, Heinikoski also states.