Rejected asylum seekers in Finland may get a large sum from Helsinki beginning next year if they agree to return to their home countries, according to the Finnish Interior Ministry, which introduced the new “voluntary return assistance” programme on Thursday.
According to the ministry’s statement, a refugee can apply for a grant for voluntary repatriation and get €5,300 ($5,833) if they do so within 30 days of the first negative verdict on their asylum claim or withdraw the request themselves. If they do so later, the amount will be reduced to €2,000 ($2,201).
The program, which is to be launched on January 1, 2024, is designed to encourage “leaving the country as quickly as possible and refraining from appealing the asylum decision,” the statement said. An asylum seeker can apply for the grant regardless of their country of origin.
The funds can then be used to reimburse travel expenses or “commodity support,” according to Finnish authorities. The grant can also be used by a returnee to “get education or start a small business” back home. “Returning to the home country must be a sustainable solution,” the statement said, adding that immigration authorities’ “return counselling” would be improved and steps to encourage voluntary returns would be “intensified.”
Victims of human trafficking who do not have a place of residence in Finland, as well as those who received such a residency permit because they were prevented from leaving the country, can also apply for a grant, but the amount is only €3,000 ($3,301) and does not scale depending on the timing, the severity, or the circumstances.
The ministry stated that those wishing to relocate to another EU or Schengen country, or to a country whose citizens can enter Finland without a visa, would not be supported.
The announcement comes as Finland tries to keep migrants and asylum seekers out of its eastern border with Russia. Last month, the Nordic country was forced to gradually close its border crossings with Russia, claiming an increase in the number of migrants from other countries attempting to enter its territory from Russia.
Helsinki has also accused Moscow of being behind the immigration, which the Kremlin has dismissed as “completely baseless.” In December, Interior Minister Mari Rantanen declared that the influx of newcomers was a “hybrid operation” aimed at “destabilising our society,” which Helsinki must resist.
Poland, which also has a border with Russia, stated that it has volunteered to send a team of “military advisers” to the Nordic country to provide “on-site knowledge on border security, including in an operational sense.” Finland later denied having any knowledge of Warsaw’s offer, while the Kremlin denounced it as “an absolutely unprovoked, unjustified concentration of military units on the Russian border.”
