Finland to ban Russians from buying property in security fix

Finland unveiled plans for a full ban on property acquisitions by some foreign nationals as security concerns surfaced over purchases with links to Russia near critical infrastructure, reported from Bloomberg.

Defense Minister Antti Hakkanen on Monday presented a proposal to stop Russians from making any acquisitions in the Nordic NATO member that shares the bloc’s longest land border with its main adversary. A draft law is expected to be submitted to the parliament before the year-end.

"This is based on the war of aggression conducted by Russia and the assessment made about it,” Hakkanen told reporters in Helsinki, while adding that the proposal won’t explicitly name the neighboring country.

The law would apply to citizens of countries whose homeland has "violated the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of another state and could threaten Finland’s security.” The ban would also involve legal entities "domiciled in the territory of such a state or who are owned or influenced by a citizen or entity of such a state,” the statement said.

The government will also look into "more effective” expropriation and oversight of assets "central to society’s safety and security of supply,” it said.

National security concerns among Finnish security planners, politicians and the public have intensified over property acquisitions by people from, or with links to, Russia. Finland — which joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in April last year — has already pushed through legislation that allows the state to intervene on national security grounds in real estate transactions before they happen and subsequently blocked a number of purchases, such as the sale of a former nursing home in the west of the country near an army site.

Over the years there have been numerous reports in Finland highlighting suspicious properties, some of which have contained fortifications with helipad fields, loss-making hotels kept afloat with owners linked to Russia as well as purchases in locations near critical infrastructure.

Finland’s Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said in an interview with Bloomberg News in June that the risk is that such properties "could be used for some acts of damage or possibly as a bridgehead in connection with some larger operation.”

The proposal to prevent Russian’s from acquiring properties in Finland comes less than two months after a law was passed that allows pushing back migrants sent to its eastern border by Russia as part of Kremlin’s hybrid warfare. That temporary law is intended to counter what Helsinki deems is an attempt by the Kremlin to undermine the country’s national security through migration along the 1,300-kilometer (800-mile) border between the nations.

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