EU quietly gives nine countries more EES flexibility

The countries involved are France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Greece, Malta, Portugal, Italy and Switzerland.

This is not a formal extension of the EU-wide EES grace period. The previous mechanism, which allowed countries to temporarily suspend biometric registration when queues became excessive, expired officially on September 6.

Instead, the European Commission has effectively given these nine countries additional room to delay full implementation while technical problems are resolved and border authorities work to maintain passenger flow. The Times reported that no new common deadline has been set.

That distinction matters for travellers.

Under the original EES timetable, the system became fully operational across participating countries on April 10, requiring most non-EU short-stay visitors to have their fingerprints and facial image registered when crossing the Schengen external border.

During the transition, authorities could suspend the biometric element for limited periods when queues became unmanageable. France, Portugal and Greece were among countries reported to have used that flexibility during the summer.

Technical issues still not fully resolved
The problem is that EES has proved considerably slower than the passport-stamping system it replaces. Airports and airlines have warned of queues lasting several hours, while technical failures have forced border authorities to find workarounds.

In July, the nine countries had already jointly warned Brussels that ending the suspension mechanism on September 6 was a “serious and legitimate concern.” They argued that border authorities should retain the ability to react when the system came under pressure.

France is particularly significant for British travellers because technical problems have continued at the cross-Channel border. French authorities have been unable to fully deploy EES infrastructure at some locations, meaning travellers can still encounter manual processing rather than the supposedly universal biometric procedure.

Greece has also been under pressure, with airport operators warning that biometric processing can produce dangerous queues, while Italy, Portugal, Germany and the Netherlands have experienced their own operational difficulties.

For travellers, therefore, EES is officially mandatory, but its practical application remains uneven.

That may be the biggest embarrassment for Brussels: a system designed to standardize Europe’s external borders is currently being operated differently from one country to another. And sometimes even from one airport to another. Europe needs still to work out its common rules…