ABSTRACT
Finland shares a land border with three countries (Sweden, Norway and Russia) and a sea border with Estonia (as also with Sweden and Russia). In both political and scholarly debates, the country’s eastern border with Russia receives by far the most attention. This is due to its longstanding role in definitions of the Finnish national identity, and since 1995 as part of the European Union’s external border. The Finnish-Swedish border, for its part, represents a contrasting case. There is no geopolitical tension, and it was open to various forms of border spanning activities already before these countries joined the European Union.
