Look to Finland
Finnish border officials are girding their loins and put out containers for extra passport checks to meet the increased border traffic from Russia in the New Year period. Norway has no such plans.
It is expected that the number of Russians to cross the border to Norway in the north will peak all time high during the 10 days vacation period after New Year. The challenge is the long passport and customs control queues at Storskog, Norway’s only border crossing point with Russia.
With only two passport control windows and an obligatory thorough Schengen-visa control, the queues are already long, especially on Saturdays and other official days off in Russia. The border-crossing traffic from Russia’s Kola Peninsula to Norway has increased with tens of thousands so far this year.
There are two main reasons why more Russians are visiting Northern Norway. The Russian customs has lifted the regulation on a maximum amount of 35 kg of goods per month per person to bring into Russia. As a result the Norwegian border town of Kirkenes has developed to a popular shopping destination. Secondly, Norwegian authorities softened the visa-regulations by issuing more multiple entry visas to Norway without requiring a prior invitation.
Finland is by far the most popular shopping and recreation destinations for people in western Russia. Especially among the millions of inhabitants in the St. Petersburg region.
Border officials are now preparing for the New Year’s rush, reports Helsingin Sanomat. Leave has been cancelled, and border formalities will be speeded up by checking passports in portacabin containers in addition to the office counters.
- Look to Finland and learn, says head of the Norwegian Barents Secretariat Rune Rafaelsen. The secretariat is facilitating for increased people-to-people contacts over the Norwegian-Russian border.
Rune Rafaelsen says it is a brilliant idea to place a passport control portacabin at the border crossing point to meet the increase in traffic. –Norway must do what we can to present our border as smooth and easy-going as possible, says Rafaelsen.
The current border station at Storskog is out-dated to meet the increase in traffic. The local police district, in charge of the border-crossing point and passport control, presented a report outlining ways to expand the border station at Storskog. The government did however not grant any funding to build new facilities at the border from its 2011-budget.
If the funding is coming in the 2012 budget, a new border crossing station can be ready by 2014-15.
- If we can’t bring in such passport control portacabins and extra lanes at the border station before the New Year border-crossers are coming, we should at least prepare it for the period of years before the new border station is ready, says Rune Rafaelsen.
He points at the new agreement with Russia allowing people living in the near border areas to cross the border without visa as another example of booming traffic to come before the new border station is ready.
The Norwegian border officials have today one extra passport controller at peak hours on Saturdays to supply the control regime.
Head of police in East-Finnmark, Håkon Skulstad is the official in charge of the Norwegian Storskog border station. He has not replied the questions from BarentsObserver regarding the possibilities to copy the Finnish initiative to increase passport control windows at the border with portacabin containers.
