Scenes of thousands of migrants converging on the Poland-Belarus border have prompted many in Finland to assess how the country would respond if a large number of asylum seekers were to arrive on the Finnish border.
National Coalition Party (NCP) and Finns Party MPs have called for the government to urgently introduce legislative changes to make it possible to suspend the reception of asylum applications. Such action is, however, implausible without breaching a host of international agreements that Finland is party to.
Mikko Lehmus, who heads the Border Guard's risk analysis unit, told Yle that "closing borders" is not a Finnish legal concept.
He noted that Finland can shut down border crossing points, which essentially entails blocking traffic with booms and preventing people from moving through checkpoints.
Lehmus said building a fence along Finland's external border would be unrealistic from a cost perspective.
"Constructing a fence in southeastern Estonia costs 500-1,000 euros per metre. Finland has some 1,300 kilometres of border," he said, noting that not one migrant related to Belarus' hybrid operation has entered Finland via the eastern border.
The few dozen people who have reached Finland via Belarus have arrived from other EU countries. Twenty of these individuals have sought asylum in Finland.
Lehmus emphasised that border officials are always obliged to accept asylum applications, with individuals allowed to stay in Finland until their cases reach a legal conclusion.
International law professor Martti Koskenniemi added that Finland can't opt out of international agreements regarding humanitarian protection even if thousands of migrants arrive on Finnish borders.
This means Finland cannot turn away migrants that have made it inside Finnish borders if they cite grounds for seeking asylum. The Helsinki University professor also noted that preventing asylum seekers from filing applications in Finland could qualify as breaching European human rights agreements in terms of inhumane treatment.
Defending one's sovereignty is also not a reason to ignore international treaties, according to Koskenniemi.
He, however, said that in an emergency it may be possible to legally diverge from certain agreements. The criteria for what constitutes an emergency is open for interpretation, according to Koskenniemi, who noted that the arrival of a few hundred or a thousand migrants on the border would not fill that criteria.
"Violating treaties or international law is serious. It justifies other states taking countermeasures. Above all, it creates a precedent others can use in the future against the infringer," he said.
