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FINLAND
1. INVOLUNTARY RETURN
1.1 POLICY
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FINLAND
Historically a country of emigration, it was not until the early 1980s that Finland became a
regular net recipient of immigrants. Until the early 1990s, Finland’s immigration policies were
primarily concerned with security. However, socio-economic and political changes, such as the
break-up of the Soviet Union and Finland’s membership of the EU, led to significant changes in
the way migration is managed. These developments coincided with an increase in immigration
to Finland in the mid-1990s, particularly as a result of the conflicts, following the break-up of
Former Yugoslavia. Since then, the rate of immigration to Finland has increased rapidly.
At the end of 2002, the population of foreign nationals in Finland stood at 103,682, some 22,250
of whom were refugees, predominantly from Romania, Slovakia, Bosnia, Bulgarian and Russia. 1
While these figures are modest by European standards, they have had considerable impact on
Finland’s immigration policies.
In general, the practice of granting refugee status, based on the definition in the Refugee Convention,
remains limited; and the majority of refugees are accepted on humanitarian grounds,
established quotas or family reunification. Of the 3,400 applications for asylum received in
2002, for instance, only 14 were granted asylum, 600 were granted residence permits, while
about 500 were given residency for family reunification purposes. A further 750 were accepted
under established annual refugee quotas, which included nationals from Afghanistan, Sudan,
Iraq, Iran and Turkey.
Finland, like other EU Member States, has over the past decade, sought to formulate immigration
policies that encourage the entry of labour migrants to meet the demands of its labour
market, while streamlining asylum procedures to prevent unwarranted entries. An amendment
to the Aliens Act in 2000, for example, revised the accelerated or fast track asylum application
procedure applicable when: (a) the applicant makes a new application for asylum after receiving
a negative decision on an earlier application, and bases the application on the same grounds;
(b) an applicant arrives from a safe third country of asylum; 2 (c) the Dublin Convention or the
readmission provisions of the Nordic Passport Control Treaty are applicable; or (d) the application
is considered to be manifestly unfounded.
In March 2003, new immigration regulations were introduced in a proposed Aliens Act. This Act
has not yet been implemented, but contains measures to detain asylum seekers in detention
centres rather than police cells or local prisons, provides for new financial penalties on carriers