New law to bestow more power on Border Guard

The government plans to table a new bill at parliament to empower the Border Guard authorities to exercise more power with the view to improve the Border Guard’s defence capabilities against serious incidents at the border such as hostage situations or IT systems failure, reported the national broadcaster Yle.

The bill is expected to be placed before parliament in autumn and the law will come into effect in spring 2018 if passed by parliament.

According to the draft law, the Border Guard will be entitled to exercise additional powers and jurisdiction to fight international hybrid warfare, illegal immigration, and human trafficking.

The Border Guard will be authorised to employ the same assault tactics as the police at border crossing stations including use of military force.

The Crimean crisis involving “little green men” or unmarked foreign combatants was also a wake-up call for the organisation monitoring Finland’s frontiers, said Ari-Pekka Koivisto, the Border Guard’s legal chief of staff, to Yle.

The guards’ jurisdiction would extend to long distance from border crossing points, said the report.