Finland must have an independent and credible capacity to maintain a good border security level. The eastern border barrier fence that is to be built is an important part of this capacity. The barrier fence will improve the efficiency of our border surveillance here and now. It will support the management of disruptions at the border in a significant manner. In practice, a physical barrier fence is necessary in situations where illegal migration is instrumentalised or extensive. The barrier fence will also reduce Finland's dependence on the effectiveness of Russian border control.
Eastern border barrier fence project proceeds
The Finnish Border Guard has proceeded to the eastern border barrier fence’s large-scale construction stage. So far, an approximately three kilometres long pilot fence has been constructed in Pelkola, Imatra, and an approximately four kilometres long pilot fence in Salla. User and maintenance experiences have been acknowledged in the plans, and experiences are still gathered in order to be used later during the project.
Conditions for the project’s full implementation have now been established. Trees have already been removed from the area of the barrier fence in Southeast Finland, North Karelia and Kainuu on a distance of 100 kilometres, and the work continues and expands.
First, during the construction stage that now continues, approximately 70 kilometres of barrier fence will be built on international border crossing points and their flanks in Southeast Finland, North Karelia, Kainuu and Northeast Ostrobothnia. The construction of eight target areas, in total, will start during the summer and autumn. In the late autumn, removal of trees will start also at the target areas of the next stage, where small roads lead across the border and in areas with corresponding risk level. These areas are 128 kilometres, in total, on an area from Southeast Finland to Lapland.
According to current plans, the fence will be built for a distance of approximately 200 kilometres along our 1,300-kilometer-long eastern border. The intention is to complete the entire barrier fence in 2026. Most of the fence will be located at the south-east border, which is a priority area for border control. It would not be a sensible option to build a fence that extends along the entire length of the border.
The barrier fence consists of a fence, the adjacent road, a deforested opening and a technical surveillance system, and will become an important tool for border control. Not even this system is a solution to any threat on its own, but a part of overall border control. The barrier fence will give the Finnish Border Guard more time to react and facilitates the management of disruptions in a decisive way by detecting, preventing, slowing down and guiding people's movement at the border. In addition, the road that will be built next to the fence will enable the Finnish Border Guard to react considerably faster to events on the national border. Other means of enhancing border control, such as increasing staff and technical surveillance in border regions, would be neither cheaper nor faster solutions than the barrier fence. The life cycle of the barrier fence is about 50 years, but the technical surveillance system must be renewed approximately every ten years.
Based on the experiences from the pilot and planning stage, the organisation, schedule, budget and the basic construction of the barrier fence have been deemed successful. Small adjustments have been made in the constructions of the barrier fence, based on experiences. The wire netting will be half a metre higher (3.5 metres) and denser, in order to promote the barrier’s effect. The attachments and constructions of the fence, the gates and the cylindrical obstructions have been improved. Furthermore, the installation of ponton roads that are built on wetlands have been changed. The barrier fence will be built on the border opening close to the border line. The technical monitoring solutions are further improved.
An environmental report on the entire barrier fence project was also prepared during the pilot stage. On the basis of the said report, the South-East Finland Centre for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment decided that the environmental impact assessment, in accordance with the Act on the Environmental Impact Assessment Procedure (252/2017), will not be applied to the eastern border barrier fence. The significant environmental impacts identified in the report will be considered in the barrier fence project so that the impacts can be brought to an acceptable level. In addition to experiences in service, the behaviour of animals at the fence is examined.
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