New kind of police cooperation between Finland and Sweden to begin on 1 July 2026

Cooperation between the Finnish and Swedish police will expand on 1 July 2026, to include dealing with certain emergency response tasks in municipalities located along the border between Finland and Sweden. This new form of cooperation is based on an agreement signed in 2021 between the Government of the Republic of Finland and the Government of the Kingdom of Sweden, which was brought into force in both countries through separate acts in 2025.

The agreement allows the parties to request assistance from the police of the other country to deal with urgent emergency tasks affecting life and health in municipalities along the national border. This kind of police cooperation, in which a police patrol from a neighbouring country independently carries out an emergency response task in another country, has never before been carried out between the two countries. With regard to Finland, the agreement applies to the areas of the municipalities of Enontekiö, Kolari, Muonio, Pello, Tornio and Ylitornio. The agreement gives police patrols from both countries the right, on their own initiative, even without a request, to cross the national border and to take such temporary measures in the border area as are necessary to avert an immediate threat to a person’s life, health or bodily integrity.

“This new form of cooperation will further enhance active police cooperation between the two countries,” says Deputy National Police Commissioner Sanna Heikinheimo at the National Police Board of Finland. 

Both contracting states will assign police officers who have consented to participate in this operation and who have been trained for this purpose over the past few months, both in their own countries and through joint training and exercises organised for police officers from both countries. The training has been carried out in excellent cooperation between the National Police Board of Finland, Police University College, Lapland Police Department, Oulu Police Department and Norrbotten Police District in Sweden.

”Under the new agreement, the operational police units of the Finnish Police are the Lapland Police Department for patrol operations and the Northern Police Command Centre, located at Oulu Police Department, for decision-making processes related to providing and requesting assistance,” says Vesa Pihajoki, Police Chief at Lapland Police Department.