Until now, anyone who wanted to travel to Svalbard from abroad had to deal with the entry regulations in advance. Because traveling to the Arctic archipelago was not the same as entering Norway, at least as a citizen of a Schengen country. This was due to the fact that Svalbard, unlike Norway, was not part of the Schengen area and therefore passports with the appropriate controls were necessary. So far, this has been done either in Oslo or Tromsø. This is set to get more complex from February. But not for everyone.
Passport control yes, but for whom, is at the moment the crucial question for travelers who will arrive in Longyearbyen from February onwards. And actually the answer would be quite simple: entry to Svalbard is only possible with a valid passport and all travelers from abroad who will arrive on Svalbard will go through a passport control. According to current practice, this would mean that travelers arriving in Longyearbyen either directly from abroad via charter flight or from Oslo or Tromsø would have to go through an immigration checkpoint again before receiving their luggage and then leaving the airport. This would be no different than traveling to other countries that are not part of the Schengen Agreement.
The Norwegian government had issued these plans for Svalbard in May 2022 in the wake of the Ukraine conflict. But on Svalbard, the reality is different than Oslo would like it to be. This was because there was a lack of the necessary resources to be able to implement the plans at all, both in terms of infrastructure and personnel. Besides, the tourist season had just started. So the necessary structures had to be created first. The first thing that is now underway is the construction of the control building. This will be located on the side of the airport terminal, where tour groups previously boarded their buses to the city center. The building will be entered through an entrance from the inside and will be similar in design to the one in Tromsø. That is, a simple room with dividers and two control boxes. After passport checks, one will exit to the back of the building and down a ramp, then head back inside on the side of the airport to collect your luggage from the conveyor belt. Only then the journey continues to Longyearbyen.
But there is still the question of who should be controlled at all. This is because most travelers will not arrive on charter flights, which are most likely to have to go through passport controls, but on regular flights from Oslo and Tromsø. And there one had already gone through passport controls. So two checkpoints on the way to Longyearbyen? “It can be. There will not be a fixed arrangement that everyone goes out or everyone has to come in,” explains Chief Warrant Officer of the Sysselmester Stein Olav Bredli, who is responsible for police duties, in an interview with the local newspaper Svalbardposten. “It will be an assessment we make almost day to day. But we have to have the locations in place.” He also goes on to say that these measures and the 136-square-meter building that will be ready in February are only temporary. “We don’t want permanent passport controls up here,” Bredli explained further in the interview. But at least the building will really only be temporary, since an expansion of the airport terminal has been discussed for some time. But whether Bredli’s wishes will be heard in Oslo in the future is questionable. This is because the situation on which the government’s decision of the implementation was based has not improved and is very unlikely to change in the foreseeable future.
Dr Michael Wenger, PolarJournal
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