Norway is considering plans to install a fence along part or all of the 123-mile border it shares with Russia in a move inspired by a similar project in Finland.
In an interview with Norwegian public broadcaster NRK published on Saturday evening, Justice Minister Emilie Enger Mehl said: “A border fence is very interesting, not only because it can act as a deterrent but also because it contains sensors and technology that allow us to detect if people are approaching the border.’
He said the Norwegian government is currently studying “several measures” to strengthen security on the border with Russia in the northern Arctic, such as fencing, increasing the number of border personnel or intensifying surveillance.
The Storskog border station, which has seen only a handful of illegal border crossing attempts in recent years, is the only official crossing point into Norway from Russia.
Should the security situation in the sensitive Arctic zone worsen, the Norwegian government is ready to close the border before long, said Enger Mehl, who visited neighboring Finland this summer to learn how the entire land border between Finland and Russia, 830 miles. .
The location of the proposed fence on the border between Norway and Russia
The £300m Finnish fence along the Russian border was installed as a security measure after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Finland hopes to avoid a repeat of events on the EU’s eastern border in Poland in the winter of 2021, when Belarus, a staunch ally of Russia, engineered a crisis by flying in migrants from the Middle East, granting them visas and pushing them to cross the border. Pictured: Construction of another section of fence earlier this year.
The Finnish government was forced to close all crossing points from Russia to Finland by the end of 2023, after more than 1,300 migrants from third countries without proper documentation and visas – an unusually high number – entered the country in three months. , just months after the nation became a member of NATO.
To prevent Moscow from using migrants in what the Finnish government calls Russia’s “hybrid war,” Helsinki is currently building fences with a total length of up to 124 miles in separate sections along the border area that forms part of the northern flank. of NATO and serves as the External Border of the European Union.
Finnish border officials say fences equipped with top-level surveillance equipment, which will be located mainly around crossing points, are needed to better monitor and control any migrants attempting to cross from Russia and give officials time to react. .
The fence in Finland was built near the Pelkola border crossing in Imatra.
Norwegian Justice Minister Emilie Enger Mehl said such a fence could also be a good idea for Norway.
Inspired by the Finnish project, Enger Mehl said that such a fence could also be a good idea for Norway. According to NRK, his statement was supported by police chief Ellen Katrine Hætta in Finnmark county in northern Norway.
“It is a measure that may become relevant on all or part of the border” between Norway and Russia, said Enger Mehl.
The Storskog border station is currently surrounded by a 660-foot-long, 12-foot-high fence erected in 2016 after about 5,000 migrants and asylum seekers crossed from Russia into Norway a year earlier.
Norway, a nation of 5.6 million people, is a member of NATO but not the European Union. However, it belongs to the EU Schengen area, whose participants have abolished border controls on their mutual borders, guaranteeing the free movement of citizens.
