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Longer opening, better capacity

In June 2013, Russia's Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev visited Storskog border-check-point arriving in this limo.

Norway’s new conservative government presented its political platform on Monday promising extended opening hours and better capacity at Storskog border check-point to Russia.

Location

Pushing for extended opening hours for cross-border traffic between Norway and Russia in the north has been a goal for almost a decade. The first talks with Russia’s border authorities were initiated by Jan Petersen, Norway’s Foreign Minister at the time when the Conservative Party was in government last time back in 2004.

Presenting their 75-pages political platform Monday evening, the Conservatives and Progress Party follows the outgoing government’s strategy by pointing to the northern areas as Norway’s most important focus area in its foreign policy.   

In the list of bullet points in the new government’s declaration chapter about the High North, extended opening hours and increased capacity at Storskog is the only related to infrastructure.

Storskog border check-point (and subsequently the Russian check-point Borisoglebsk) is today closing by night, hindering cross-border trade and business traffic at western Europe’s northernmost land border road to Russia. The border closes at 9 pm Norwegian time and does not open again before 7 am. 

In 2010, the Norwegian Parliament’s Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defense made a call to keep the border check-point open around the clock. 

On June 25, 2007, the Foreign Ministry in Oslo sent a note to the Foreign Ministry in Moscow informing that Norway was ready to extend the opening hours already from July the same year. Later, Oslo has raised the issue on several occasions. 

Traffic over Storskog, Borisoglebsk increases month by month following easier visa-rules and peaking cross-border shopping and tourism. In September, 26,000 border crossings were counted, up 4,000 from the same month last year, shows the statistics given to BarentsObserver by the local police in Kirkenes in charge of immigration control. The traffic has doubled over the last three years and is expected to reach at least 310,000 by year end. 

The current border check-point at Storskog was built in the early 90ies, but despite smaller expansions in recent years, the facilities can’t coop with the capacity demands for today’s traffic.

In September, BarentsObserver reported that Kolarctic, EU and Russia’s financial instrument for cross-border projects, has approved a €26 million plan to build a brand new border check-point at Borisoglebsk to meet the peaking traffic. Construction work on the Russian check-point can start next year. Both local police authorities and businesses on the Norwegian side have for years been pushing on the government for budget-grants to build a long-planned new border check-point at Storskog.

With the promises in the new government’s political platform to provide for better capacity at Storskog, a new built check-point can make an end to the queues.