The centre-right government of Finland wants to extend a law that allows it to turn back illegal migrants at its border with Russia until the end of 2026.
“The threat of instrumentalised migration at Finland’s eastern border remains high and unpredictable,” Interior Minister Mari Rantanen said.
Such a move requires a five-sixths majority in parliament. Because two of the larger left-liberal opposition parties are willing to back the extension, it seems likely that the motion will pass.
The Nordic EU member state has accused neighbouring Russia of ‘weaponising’ migration by sending migrants from the Middle East and Africa across its borders with Finland.
Despite warnings that Finland violated its international human rights obligations, it closed down all official border crossing points at the end of 2023 and, the following year, adopted a law that allows border guards to reject asylum applications at the borders with Russia.
These steps were part of the government’s response to more than 1,300 migrants from countries such as Syria, Iraq, and Yemen entering Finland from Russia in 2023.
The government’s actions have proven successful: in 2024, only eight people crossed the border illegally after January.
The number of new asylum applications is also in general decline: in 2022, there were 5,372 first-time asylum claims; in 2023 that number decreased to 2,948. Authorities expect last year’s number to be even lower.
As Sebastian Tynkkynen, a member of the European Parliament for the governing Finns Party (European Conservatives and Reformists) recently told europeanconservative.com:
It is the toughest border law in the whole of Europe, and I hope it will be a model for other European countries that need to take similar measures.
A similar law was enacted only a few days ago in Poland, allowing the suspension of asylum rights for people who cross the border from Belarus.
While the pro-migration EU institutions have hardly uttered a complaint regarding Finland and Poland, last year, they punished the conservative government of Hungary for rejecting illegal migrants at the border.
