Assessment of the Finnish-Russian Border The Case of Vaalimaa Border Crossing Point

Abstract:

The 'Friendly EU Border' project, as a part of which the present report has been prepared, commences from the assumptions that external EU borders represent an important aspect of the EU’s policies in the field of security and of Justice and Home Affairs.

Finland, a country with a long external border with Russia, has been a member of the EU since 1995. Thus, Finland’s experience is pertinent for other EU Member States that joined the Union in 2004 and 2007, most of which share their external borders with third countries outside the EU. The EU membership has certainly affected the operations of the Finnish border control, but – perhaps even more notably – the Finnish border control expertise has had a crucial influence on the way border control has been developed on European scale.

The aim of the present evaluation is to examine the situation and the functioning of the Finnish-Russian border. The report focuses on Vaalimaa border crossing point. The relevance of the Vaalimaa case is that dealing approximately with 2,500 passenger cars, 800 trucks and 60 busses a day, it is the busiest border crossing point at the Finnish- Russian border and the entire EU’s border with Russia.