Sámi Parliament, ministry to negotiate on Arctic rail route

The Sámi Parliament of Finland has requested negotiations on the draft report regarding Arctic railway routing in accordance with section nine of the Act on the Sámi Parliament.

The negotiations between the Sámi Parliament and the Finnish Ministry of Transport and Communications will be held on 21 December.

The term of the working group that examined the Arctic railway routing to Kirkenes ends on Friday, said an official press release.

The report, however, will not be released before January.

The report in question is a preliminary study and no decision on the construction of the railway or on the final choice of routing has been made either in Finland or Norway.

The last meeting of the working group on the Arctic railway was held on 27 November in Helsinki.

In May, the Ministry of Transport and Communications appointed a Finnish-Norwegian working group to examine the key issues in the Rovaniemi-Kirkenes railway routing, relating for example to the Sámi as an indigenous people, the environment, permit procedures, costs, funding structure and finance model.