Winter cold reconstruction of Storskog border station. Photo: Thomas Nilsen
Temperature of -20C is no hindrance for the construction workers at Europe’s northernmost land border. Traffic between Norway and Russia is booming and forces expansion of the border station with new passport counters and lanes for vehicles. Last year, traffic increased with 38 percent and the jam in peak-hours continues to grow.
The construction workers are however only putting up an interim solution. Soon they will have to tear down the entire border station.
The Norwegian government intends to build a brand new, top modern border crossing station at Storskog to meet the sharp increase in border crossers from and to Russia. In its White Paper to the Parliament, the Foreign Ministry says: “A pre-project is under development and the government will come back to the time of implementation.”
One option under consideration is to establish a joint Norwegian, Russian border station instead of building two separate.
In the meantime, the numbers of people crossing between the two countries continue to peak. In January, 19.324 border crossings were counted, up from 13.611 last January.
By expanding the current Storskog border station, immigration and Customs officials hope to avoid more chaos in peak-hours. One additional passport control window and one extra lane for vehicles will come on both entry and exit. From April, eight new passport control officers will be employed.
Read also: Reconstruction of Norwegian border station
Queue infront of the passport control window at Storskog. Photo: Thomas Nilsen
eGates for automatic border control
The police in charge of the border station will soon take a decision on possible use of eGates for in- and outgoing traffic.
“The decision will be taken in early February, but eGates will not be in operation before the autumn of 2012. This is for two reasons; a pilot project will be tested at Oslo’s Gardermoen airport, and it will take time to acquire such eGates,” says head of police in Kirkenes Hans Møllebakken to BarentsObserver.
He says it is likely that only Russians with border-zone IDs will benefit from such eGates in the start. In May this year, citizens in the near-border areas on both sides will be able to cross the border without visa.
Read also: President Medvedev ratified agreement on visa freedom
While Norwegian authorities will start to issue smart-cards for Russians in the border area, Russian authorities will issue a border crossing permit to be pasted in the passport to Norwegians. A smart-card with biometric information can be used at eGates, while passports will still have to be recorded manually.
Busy days at visa-section in Murmansk
The majority of people crossing the border, and the reason for the sharp increase over the last year, are citizens from Murmansk, the largest city on the Kola Peninsula. Norway’s Consulate General in the city has busy days with issuing visas.
“The Consulate General in Murmansk issued 1.726 visas in January. That is 44 percent more than in January 2011,” says Consul Lars Georg Fordal to BarentsObserver.
“From February will another desk-window opens at the visa department, dedicated to those who chose to have pre-fixed an appointment for handling in the application via our internet portal,” Lars Georg Fordal informs.
Read Barents Review 2012 - Barents roadmap towards visa-freedom (pdf).
