Brits wary of EU summer hols as officials refuse to ease new border checks
The European Union has refused to suspend its divisive new border checks despite admitting that it has found 20 “difficult spots” causing queuing chaos.
The EU has said it will stand by its new Entry/Exit System (EES), a biometric border regime whose botched rollout has threatened to ruin thousands of summer holidays.
Officials admitted that the system was “not perfect” but have said they will tell the travel industry that a full suspension of the programme is neither “needed” nor “possible”.
The new rules require passengers from outside of the EU to register biometric information when entering and leaving most European countries.
A quarter of Brits say the potential for long delays at the EU’s border has put them off traveling to Europe this summer, according to the latest City PM/Freshwater Strategy poll.
The new system will make 12 per cent of Brits “much less likely” to travel to Europe while a further 12 per cent said the checks will make them “a little less likely” to take a trip to the EU, the polling found.
Quarter of Brits to stay away from EU
EU officials have launched talks with member countries in a bid to quash the delays caused by the EES, Politico has reported.
The bloc’s migration commissioner Magnus Brunner told airport and airline bosses that the new system is designed to keep “our citizens safe, without undue discomfort for visitors from outside the Schengen area,” in a letter obtained by the news outlet.
Brunner insisted that the EES “works well” in most member states and claimed that recent delays were instead caused by “insufficient staff or lack of adequate infrastructure”.
Last week, a cluster of aviation groups wrote to the bloc’s most senior official, calling on her to suspend the new checks.
Representatives from ACI Europe, Airlines 4 Europe and the International Air Transport Association (IATA) told European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen that the digital bureaucracy is hitting “millions of passengers”.
EES poses ‘unsustainable pressure’
They said that the new system is “creating severe operational consequences disrupting passengers and putting border authorities, airports and airlines under unsustainable pressure”.
“This is not an issue confined to Europe’s largest hubs. Smaller airports serving major tourism destinations are equally affected,” the trade bodies added.
In May, the UK boss of budget airline Wizz Air told passengers that they should leave at least three hours to pass through the new system.
While there has been some “seamless travel” in some areas, Yvonne Moynihan said there had been long queues at “usual hotspots such as Spain, Portugal, France”.