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No extended opening hours

The Norwegian border to Russia will be the first of the external Schengen borders that will be partly open for visa free travel

Russia says border crossings check point to Norway can’t extend the working hours due to limitations of existing infrastructure.

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Norway and Russia have in principal agreed for years that the opening hours at the border between the two countries should be extended with three hours. Russia has however said this could not happen before their border station at Borisoglebsk gets status as a international border crossing point, and not only a bi-national. Then, Borisoglebsk got international status in 2010.

Read also: Parliament wants 24h border opening

At last week’s meeting in the joint Norwegian-Russian Working Group for Regional and Cross Border Cooperation, the Russian side informed on the impossibility at present to extend the working hours of Borisoglebsk due to limitations of the existing infrastructure, reads the protocol from the meeting.

The first talks between the two countries regarding extended opening hours at the border started back in 2004, when the Norwegian Foreign Ministry’s State Secretary Kim Traavik met with Northwest-Russia’s Super-governor Ilya Khlebanov at the border. The two parties then made a principal agreement that the border should extend its opening with three hours more.

Read also: Norway pushes for extended opening hours on border

Today the border is open from 7 am to 21 pm Norwegian time, or 10 am to 24 Russian time.