At midnight Finnish time, Finland reopens its borders to all Swedes after six months of corona closure.
In the border town of Haparanda, which has been strongly affected by the restrictions, municipal councilor Sven Tornberg (C) exhales:
– Yes, but it’s nice then, I think we on both sides of the border have experienced the closed border as something terrible, something we never want to experience again.
The reliefs In the Finnish corona restrictions, countries with an incidence of no more than 25 corona-infected per hundred thousand inhabitants apply, which Sweden had when the Finnish government decided on the new rules last week.
Mika Salminen, Director of Health Safety at the Finnish equivalent of the Swedish Public Health Agency.
– This means that you can travel to Finland freely from Sweden according to the normal Schengen rules.
But right to travel to Finland risks being short-lived if the spread of infection increases in Sweden, he says:
– The government was very clear that this 25 limit, it stands, and in case any country again crosses the border, the decision will be changed.
Every week, the Finnish authorities will make new decisions about which countries will be given the green light for entry, based on incident reporting.
Ferry companies who operate different ports in Finland welcome the border opening tonight but are waiting to reopen all their lines.
– There is great uncertainty which means that we do not have the opportunity to start up the entire machinery with traffic to Helsinki at present, says Erika Jansson, communications manager at Tallink Silja.
Sven Tornberg, chairman of the municipal board in Haparanda, hopes to avoid a new border closure:
– If it were to happen, it would be very, very unfortunate.
For the border closure has been negative for neighborly relations, he says:
– Yes, it has been, it has aroused very strong feelings on both sides of the border, so it will take a while to restore what has been.
Source: ICELAND NEWS