Minister of the Interior, Lauri Läänemets, stated that more than 50,000 Estonian citizens live in Finland but we still do not have a very accurate overview. "This knowledge will not reach us immediately tomorrow either, but now we can start to further enhance the already functioning data exchange between the population registers in the two countries. We hope to create a new data exchange within a couple of years," said the minister.
Läänemets noted that the European Union operates on the basis of common principles, but there are areas where Estonia and Finland are moving in tandem at the forefront. "The population register data exchange is where we, together with Finland, are a good example for many other EU member states. The longer and substantive goal of the cooperation project is that people can have access to residence-based services and subsidies without having to orientate in a useless bureaucratic maze. Many subsidies and vital services are related to a person's permanent residence, and in order to ensure the availability of services to people living in another country, in the future a person cannot officially reside in both Finland and Estonia at the same time," explained Läänemets.
Läänemets added that in the future, data exchange for citizens will also include information other than their place of residence; it will also include data on family events.
According to Finland’s Minister of Local Government, Sirpa Paatero, it is great that this treaty has finally been signed. "It is an important milestone in deepening the cross-border digital cooperation between our countries and lays the foundation for even better public services in both countries," said Paatero.
At the moment, Estonia and Finland also exchange data under an administrative foreign contract between Estonia's Ministry of the Interior and Finland's Digital and Population Data Services Agency concluded in 2005, but this contract is limited only to residence data on the citizens of Estonia and Finland. The new treaty will make the exchange of data more regular and extensive. A major change in the future will also be the complete transfer of the data exchange to the X-path, which means that data will be exchanged electronically through a secure data exchange platform instead of transferring files. In the future, information will also be exchanged between the two countries regarding foreigners who move between Estonia and Finland.
