The Finnish Immigration Service’s Asylum Unit office in Imatra will cease operations on 1 January 2011. The Imatra and Saimaa offices will be merged to operate from the beginning of the year in Lappeenranta. After this change offices apart from Lappeenranta will be in Helsinki, Oulu and Kuhmo.
The Imatra and Oulu offices were opened in spring 2009. Additional funding for operations and for around 80 fixed-term posts totalled EUR 7.8 million for the previous and current year, granted by Parliament to the Finnish Immigration Service to deal with the congestion in asylum applications. The reduction in the number of asylum applicants this year has resulted in reduced appropriations for asylum decision-making. Additional funding for 2011 will amount to EUR 2.9 million.
Apart from Oulu and Imatra, some of the employees paid for out of the additional funding for last year were placed at Helsinki, where a new Asylum Unit profit area had been set up. This profit area will also cease operations on 1 January 2011.
Reduced number of applicants
The tasks of the Finnish Immigration Services’ Asylum Unit include asylum interviews and decisions, as well as refugee quota issues. From the beginning of next year the number of employees at the Asylum Unit will total 95, compared to a maximum of 134 during this year.
By the end of November 2010 a total of 3,606 persons had applied for asylum in Finland, while the figure for the whole of last year was 5,988.
Further information for the media:
- Kaarina Koskinen, Director, Administration Unit tel. +358 71 873 0431, e-mail: kaarina.koskinen@migri.fi
- Esko Repo, Director, Asylum Unit tel. +358 71 873 0431, e-mail: esko.repo@migri.fi
29.12.2010
