Finland tightens asylum rules

According to the report of the international group Tasnim news agency quoted by Germany’s “NTV”, the government Finland’s center-right, which has been in power since last year, has announced the intensification of its immigration policies.

According to a statement, the coalition led by Petri Orpo, the country’s conservative prime minister, among others, in A new asylum procedure is currently being planned at the Finnish border to improve the processing of applications deemed unfounded and the return of rejected asylum seekers.

Accordingly, asylum seekers should Stay close to the border during this process and if these plans are implemented, their freedom of movement in Finland will be restricted. Finland’s Interior Minister Marie Rantanen told reporters that these changes will make the asylum process “harder and faster”. According to him, the goal is to “return more quickly people who are considered as a threat to national security”.

In justifying this action of the Finnish government, Rantanen said that the proposed changes in this law are in line with the government’s goal to “increase security, It helps to prevent abuses related to immigration and strengthen compliance with social rules.

Furthermore, according to the government’s plans, asylum seekers in the future will have to change the asylum procedure to a way to obtain a residence permit for work purposes. or training will be prohibited. The length of residence required for the citizenship process should also be increased: everyone who wants to become Finnish in the future must have lived in the country for at least eight years instead of the previous five.

Furthermore, the government Finland has announced that it will introduce a draft law that would allow it to limit the acceptance of requests for international protection. In this way, the government’s four-party cabinet, including the right-wing populist party of Finns, wants to respond to the increase in the number of immigrants who have reached the country’s eastern borders in recent months.

Finland in mid-December due to The rapid increase of immigrants closed its 1340 km border with Russia. Helsinki accuses Moscow of deliberately smuggling asylum seekers to the border to create a migration crisis in Finland. Russia denies these accusations. Finland has extended the border closure several times, most recently in mid-April for an indefinite period.

Relations between Russia and Finland have deteriorated sharply since the start of Russia’s war against Ukraine in February 2022. In April 2023, Finland joined the NATO military alliance after decades of neutrality.

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