New cooperation with Russia
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By Keijo Himanen
Finland's previous turn at the Presidency of the European Union in 1999 was remembered especially as a breakthrough of internal and legal matters. At that time a foundation was created for a common refugee and immigration policy, among other things. It will soon be seven years from the decisions of the European Council, and many issues are still wide open.
It is no surprise that as Finland's second EU Presidency approaches, the themes of the Tampere meeting are again powerfully on the agenda. Now it is hoped that a common asylum system will be ready in 2010. By then, the monitoring of external borders of the Union, and the flow of information between officials should be more efficient than now.
The monitoring of Finland's borders is considered exemplary. According to a Schengen assessment group, the other EU countries could learn from Finland. Appreciation is also reflected in the fact that the head of the EU's Border Security Agency is Ilkka Laitinen.
Illegal immigration and human trafficking are permanent problems for the EU, and not even Finland has managed to avoid them. According to a fresh human rights report drafted by the US State Department, Finland is a transit country for many victims of human trafficking. In spite of the efficiency of the Finnish and Russian border guards, illegal immigration is difficult to uncover.
Fighting human trafficking requires special diligence and cooperative skills on the part of officials. Russian officials are in a key position in this work. It has been estimated that about 200,000 people from the former Soviet Union are sold abroad. Many of them come through Russia, and it is certain that many cross the Finnish border.
This year and next, Finland holds the Presidency of the of the Baltic Sea Task Force, which is responsible for cooperation in the fighting of crime in the Baltic Sea countries. Interior Minister Kari Rajamäki went to Moscow last week and proposed to his colleague Rashid Nurgaliyev that Russia join the cooperation. Rajamäki invited Nurgaliyev to a meeting of ministers responsible for police affairs of the Baltic Sea region which will be held in Koli in the east of Finland in May.
Finnish police, the Border Guard, and customs authorities have long worked together with their Russian colleagues. For instance, the police have liaisons in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Petrozavodsk, and Murmansk. However, the Directorate of immigration, which implements immigration policy on the practical level, does not have an equivalent partner of cooperation in Russia.
Six years ago an agreement was reached on cooperation concerning immigration. A year ago the interior ministers of Finland and Russia met in Petrozavodsk to discuss the same matter. Unfortunately, cooperation has still been very meagre.
The Russian equivalent of Finland's Directorate of Immigration is the Federal Immigration Service (FMS). It was founded soon after the disintegration of the Soviet Union in order to take care of of matters related to the migration of ethnic Russians from the former Soviet republics back to Russia.
Therefore, for Russians, immigration means something quite different from what it is understood to mean in most of the EU.
FMS is an office that mainly serves the country's own citizens. It is both a problem of Finland and the EU that the office is not really interested in asylum-seekers, citizens of third countries, or illegal immigration. Contacts between the Finnish Directorate of Immigration and Russia have been sporadic, even though Russians are the largest group of immigrants in Finland. Nearly 25,000 Russian citizens live in Finland. Among asylum-seekers, Russians are the sixth largest group.
Planning and improvement of cooperation among immigration authorities is a small, but important part of bringing relations between the EU and Russia closer together. The EU and Russia have their own road maps, which define cooperation in matters such as interior policy and legal affairs.
The EU wants to intensify cooperation with Russian immigration officials with Finland's help. After years of vacillation, there are now hopes of genuine cooperation. The Ministry for Foreign Affairs has granted EUR 100,000 in funding for cooperation with adjacent areas for the launch of the cooperative project. Russia is also sharing the costs, but only with a 15 percent share.
The purpose is to use the money for joint training and seminars, in which information is to be exchanged, and the establishment of a cooperative network is to be discussed. The rules have been drafted as an agreement, which is to be signed in the near future.
On the practical level, cooperation means that the Directorate of immigration, and its offices in Kuhmo and Lappeenranta have contacts with the FMS organisation in Murmansk, St. Petersburg, the Leningrad Region, and the Republic of Karelia. With the help of the network, the Directorate of Immigration hopes to get topical and reliable information about migration in Russia.
The cooperation is aimed principally at fighting illegal immigration and trafficking in humans. It also helps promote so-called positive immigration - the movement of workers and students between countries.
With the help of the network of cooperation, it is possible to follow the flows of immigration, to agree on common practices, and to develop the flow of information between countries. What is most important in the project is for officials to get to know each other, to have a permanent contact with one another, as well as the desire to exchange information.
There are many foreign citizens in Russia who want to get into some EU country. The dream of work and living in the West creates the foundation for human trafficking and smuggling. The EU has defined both of these as security threats, which must be firmly rejected. In that work, the cooperation of immigration authorities of different countries, including Finland and Russia, is of decisive importance, as well as that of police and border officials.
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 28.3.2006
KEIJO HIMANEN / Helsingin Sanomat
keijo.himanen@hs.fi
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| 4.4.2006 - THIS WEEK |
 New cooperation with Russia |
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