Introduction of European Entry-Exit Scheme (EES)

[eoff]

Arrived into Schiphol on Friday for long weekend in Amsterdam, no machines operating at the entry check, the queue wound past them.
Departed yesterday, again no use of the new machines, just e-gates to check passports before seeing agents and having passport stamped again.

 

[route101]

Its funny how you go to Spain and the like and they will not ask you any questions but Germany, Finland etc will.

 

[MrJeeves]

Was in Copenhagen at the weekend,and EES was sort of carried out at the immigration desk as the kiosks were present,but covered up.There was a huge queue to enter,but it was managed extremely well,with a queue marshall directing people down the EU line if the queues got too long.As an EU passport holder I waltzed past the queue wearing a smug grin,but was pleasantly surprised when Mrs.A and her non EU friends got through less than 10 minutes later.Apparently they had been directed down the EU route,and didn’t get fingerpprinted or photographed. I am not sure if it will work at every airport,but they chose the queue next to the one for EU passports, and this did seem to be the one that was getting most referrals.Exit was a 35 minute queue, but again just the exit stamp.Not sure how it would have worked if you had the ees details taken on the way in.

Copenhagen has had these camera and fingerprinting "totems" at the booths for a few years now. Never seen one used.

Parents had a similar experience last time in Copenhagen, where my mum was laksadaisically waving her Danish passport around in the "All passports" queue before the queue marshal told her she could use the EU line... and then she pointed out my dad and his UK passport before being told they could just both go anyway.

(Before someone says, yes family members and spouses of EU citizens get freedom of movement benefits, but not in the EU citizen's home country, so they cannot use the EU queue together in Denmark but could if they went to Sweden or France or Spain, for example.)

Off topic, but... Why are these people there?

They check the passport holder's name (and presumably the passport details too) has been recorded in the system used for Advance Passenger Information, which gets reported back to Border Force. If you have somehow gotten through the Eurostar gates without giving API, they will give you a paper form to fill in before you can proceed to the juxtaposed French border control.

 

[signed]

(Before someone says, yes family members and spouses of EU citizens get freedom of movement benefits, but not in the EU citizen's home country, so they cannot use the EU queue together in Denmark but could if they went to Sweden or France or Spain, for example.)

Pedentically, that isn't universally true (but the remark is obviously valid for most if not all other states)

Italians citizens spouses and family in Italy are by law treated the same as other EU citizens

 

[MrJeeves]

Pedentically, that isn't universally true (but the remark is obviously valid for most if not all other states)

Italians citizens spouses and family in Italy are by law treated the same as other EU citizens

It's not a right under EU law, is what I mean. Whether a member state chooses to provide the same rights is up to them of course.

 

[signed]

It's not a right under EU law, is what I mean

Yup, absolutely

 

[Amos]

(Before someone says, yes family members and spouses of EU citizens get freedom of movement benefits, but not in the EU citizen's home country, so they cannot use the EU queue together in Denmark but could if they went to Sweden or France or Spain, for example.)

I had best hope that Mrs A doesn’t read this or I won’t be able to abandon her and go to the pub.

 

[FinsburyPark]

(Before someone says, yes family members and spouses of EU citizens get freedom of movement benefits, but not in the EU citizen's home country, so they cannot use the EU queue together in Denmark but could if they went to Sweden or France or Spain, for example.)

Hmmm? I have heard from people in thos situation. Anecdotally I'm told its often hit and miss. It depends on how the immigration officer on the day is choosing to interpret the rules. Some will and some won't.


You could even arrive and depart the same location and get different results.

 

[mrmartin]

https://x.com/i/status/2001648450744820120

Getting absolutely ridiculous at eg LIS, "urgent questions" beging asked in the Portuguese parliament

 

[Cloud Strife]

So far, I'm not convinced that the EES will be fully operational by April. There's a lot of reports of catastrophic queues all over Schengen, not helped by kiosks sometimes being used for registration, sometimes used for both registration and preliminary border control, sometimes not used at all, and delays of 2-3 hours on both entry and exit are being reported.

It's hard to understand where the problem is actually coming from, but even countries where the EES registration is carried out at the booth are experiencing really severe delays, far more than there were pre-EES. It shouldn't be the case, as EES entry/exit records are quick to obtain/update, but something is causing a massive slowdown. It may be a lack of organisation in airports, it may be a failure to build the right infrastructure, it's very hard to tell.

Either way, I wouldn't say it's been a successful rollout so far. It's possible that at least some of the problems are being caused by overstayers being flagged up and/or Schengen members applying much stricter border controls to all non-EU citizens, but I haven't heard of any systematic increase in questioning of non-EU travellers.

 

[Howardh]

So far, I'm not convinced that the EES will be fully operational by April. There's a lot of reports of catastrophic queues all over Schengen, not helped by kiosks sometimes being used for registration, sometimes used for both registration and preliminary border control, sometimes not used at all, and delays of 2-3 hours on both entry and exit are being reported.

It's hard to understand where the problem is actually coming from, but even countries where the EES registration is carried out at the booth are experiencing really severe delays, far more than there were pre-EES. It shouldn't be the case, as EES entry/exit records are quick to obtain/update, but something is causing a massive slowdown. It may be a lack of organisation in airports, it may be a failure to build the right infrastructure, it's very hard to tell.

Either way, I wouldn't say it's been a successful rollout so far. It's possible that at least some of the problems are being caused by overstayers being flagged up and/or Schengen members applying much stricter border controls to all non-EU citizens, but I haven't heard of any systematic increase in questioning of non-EU travellers.

I understand airports etc are asking for the next stage (something like 35% to be checked) be put back so the Xmas and NY holiday season can flow more easily.

The whole thing seems to be a very expensive white elephant, but because of that expense I can't see it ever being dropped, it would have been a lot easier if UK's were exempt from this (at least for several years) so they could concentrate on non-European incomers, but of course we haven't helped ourselves by not coming to a post-Brexit deal.

Had voters been aware in 2016 that in 2026 Brexit would cause huge queues getting on holiday, plus taking your eye and fingerprint scans, and that's before the ETIAS, would the country have voted for it?

That aside, what's the situation like today (Mad Friday!) r/e Eurostar at St Pancras, what % of pax are being EES'ed and what are the queues like??

Technical difficulty in border control system prompts more hideous queues at Lisbon airport – Portugal Resident

Technical difficulty in border control system prompts more hideous queues at Lisbon airport: "It's always the same!"

www.portugalresident.com

SSI, the country’s Internal Security System has already admitted that the Entry/Exit System (EES) may be suspended during Christmas to avoid these bottlenecks. It is a measure that has already been authorised by the European Commission, and is a decision that “will be taken according to the information that arrives from Portuguese airports”.

 

[SargeNpton]

Second-hand information, based on a story coming back from a recent visit by my local team to France...

The EES gates don't like 6' 7" rugby players, those with large hands, or whose fingers are a bit gnarled and twisted so that not all the fingers can lie flat on the scanner at the same time.

 

[Broucek]

Yeah, I went to Lisbon recently for work. Machines weren't working properly. Thankfully I was one of the first people to arrive from my flight.

Holidays are one thing but this is particularly worrying for those of us who travel for work. For most of Europe, I go the night before as you lose an hour on the way over due to time zones (not Portugal) but there are times I travel early in the morning for an afternoon meeting and two hours to clear immigration could cause me to miss a meeting.

 

[Howardh]

Second-hand information, based on a story coming back from a recent visit by my local team to France...

The EES gates don't like 6' 7" rugby players, those with large hands, or whose fingers are a bit gnarled and twisted so that not all the fingers can lie flat on the scanner at the same time.

There was a goalie who had a "bent-back" finger; raises the obvious question; if four fingers are needed to be provided, what if someone's lost a finger, or even a hand, in an accident?

 

[Elwyn]

There was a goalie who had a "bent-back" finger; raises the obvious question; if four fingers are needed to be provided, what if someone's lost a finger, or even a hand, in an accident?

I used to work for what is now UK Borderforce. I used to fingerprint people regularly. The systems we used could cope with missing fingers or hands. And I once had a lady with 6 fingers. You just make a note on the system (or on the paper form in the days when they were taken that way) and the next time they travel the system won’t be looking for 5 fingers (or whatever the unusual aspect is).

You also get people who have damaged fingerprints sometimes due to their profession or because they have rubbed them off deliberately to avoid being fingerprinted (common with asylum seekers seeking to hide the fact they have already claimed asylum in some other country, or who have been removed before).


Bottom line is if the system can’t read your fingerprints you’ll be directed to an immigration officer for interview. May slow things down but doesn't necessarily mean you won't be admitted.

 

[FinsburyPark]

So far, I'm not convinced that the EES will be fully operational by April. There's a lot of reports of catastrophic queues all over Schengen, not helped by kiosks sometimes being used for registration, sometimes used for both registration and preliminary border control, sometimes not used at all, and delays of 2-3 hours on both entry and exit are being reported.

It's hard to understand where the problem is actually coming from, but even countries where the EES registration is carried out at the booth are experiencing really severe delays, far more than there were pre-EES. It shouldn't be the case, as EES entry/exit records are quick to obtain/update, but something is causing a massive slowdown. It may be a lack of organisation in airports, it may be a failure to build the right infrastructure, it's very hard to tell.

Either way, I wouldn't say it's been a successful rollout so far. It's possible that at least some of the problems are being caused by overstayers being flagged up and/or Schengen members applying much stricter border controls to all non-EU citizens, but I haven't heard of any systematic increase in questioning of non-EU travellers.

I had these questions from the outset. Only time will tell if once enough people are enrollednin the system, will it ease processing delays.

I think in some ways, Dover should have been done on 1st of December (as planned) and airports that want to reduce to 35% occupancy should have the request denied.

Why: if it doesnt work from a passenger throughput per hour standpoint, ideally the EU/Schengen area needs to know about it. This way the correct tweaks can be implemented early enough well before thier final date.

The xmas period would have been a good dry run to see if this is workable in practice.

 

[mrmartin]

I understand airports etc are asking for the next stage (something like 35% to be checked) be put back so the Xmas and NY holiday season can flow more easily.

The whole thing seems to be a very expensive white elephant, but because of that expense I can't see it ever being dropped, it would have been a lot easier if UK's were exempt from this (at least for several years) so they could concentrate on non-European incomers, but of course we haven't helped ourselves by not coming to a post-Brexit deal.

Had voters been aware in 2016 that in 2026 Brexit would cause huge queues getting on holiday, plus taking your eye and fingerprint scans, and that's before the ETIAS, would the country have voted for it?

That aside, what's the situation like today (Mad Friday!) r/e Eurostar at St Pancras, what % of pax are being EES'ed and what are the queues like??

Technical difficulty in border control system prompts more hideous queues at Lisbon airport – Portugal Resident

Technical difficulty in border control system prompts more hideous queues at Lisbon airport: "It's always the same!"

www.portugalresident.com

Tbh what they should have done is something like this:

1) Full EES for countries that aren't in the common ones that are 'egate' enabled (US, Canada, UK, Australia, Japan, etc)
2) Tested it with those other countries
3) Ironed out all the problems - which may include a total rethink of it
4) roll it out to everyone

The whole thing is a total farce tbh, why they went for a gradual rollout of _airports_ and not countries is beyond me. I strongly suspect that the countries I list there tend not to overstay at anywhere near the rate of some other countries.

It should have also been very obvious this would implode to be honest. If they'd done any testing and found out it took x minutes for the average person to clear the kiosk/desk, and worked out average passenger flows it would have been obvious that it wouldn't work. Then throw in some modelling in the event it takes 50% longer (or whatever).

Finally, I'm not convinced it would be dramatically different at some airports if it was just non-UK third nationals. Lisbon for example has an awful lot of US/LatAm/African travel.

 

[FinsburyPark]

Tbh what they should have done is something like this:

1) Full EES for countries that aren't in the common ones that are 'egate' enabled (US, Canada, UK, Australia, Japan, etc)
2) Tested it with those other countries
3) Ironed out all the problems - which may include a total rethink of it
4) roll it out to everyone

The whole thing is a total farce tbh, why they went for a gradual rollout of _airports_ and not countries is beyond me. I strongly suspect that the countries I list there tend not to overstay at anywhere near the rate of some other countries.

It should have also been very obvious this would implode to be honest. If they'd done any testing and found out it took x minutes for the average person to clear the kiosk/desk, and worked out average passenger flows it would have been obvious that it wouldn't work. Then throw in some modelling in the event it takes 50% longer (or whatever).

Finally, I'm not convinced it would be dramatically different at some airports if it was just non-UK third nationals. Lisbon for example has an awful lot of US/LatAm/African travel.

Either way, The EU could have a serious problem on its hands in future years if this goes horribly wrong.

If it affects throughput to a point where its mostly unworkable, the consumer will travel elsewhere.

If passengers get a bad memory of being stuck at immigration in the EU, a traveller might ditch plans for another trip to Paris or Amsterdam and go to Turkey or Morrocco instead.

 

[Reliablebeam]

Thanks @MalaiseForever for the reports on Finland, and others for their experiences. It's difficult to get good summaries of places to avoid in Schengen-land going forwards, but some of the feedback on here is helpful.

I'll preface my remarks here by saying I am a Remainer who works in a field that Brexit (or at least the way it was delivered) damaged. This system sounds like someone took the very worst features of every system around the world and combined them. It should have been obvious that given the volume of journeys between the UK and the rest of Europe this system would be unworkable, and I guess the UK side acknowledges this by allowing EU nationals to use egates. I guess we can blame the poor negotiators we had but maybe we fell into the British problem of trying to be nice/honourable and not thinking that northern European nations in particular would be so petulant as to take it out on British visitors. I'm fully aware that some people believe British passport holders need retribution and punishment, but at the end of the day most of us just want to get on with life. I hosted some visitors in work from the Nordics recently who sailed through UK egates, actually commenting that many UK nationals passports were failing to read correctly... I've certainly acknowledged that Schengen doesn't want British visitors - and maybe that's something to celebrate as many countries grow their economies and don't need to host us anymore But for my part I unfortunately have business reasons for visiting ....

The discussion point of non-EU citizens accompanying an EU partner across the border is an interesting one a lot of my colleagues have come across. The rules for which queue to use seem to be all over the place, with nations like Denmark and Sweden just inventing 'rules' on the day depending on their mood / what the union says.

 

[gswindale]

We landed at Kuusamo in Finland earlier today.

Seemed a little chaotic as all 5 border posts were open, but still took about an hour from gettihg off the plane to getting through. No idea why though, as when we eventually got there, the 3 of us (2 adults & a 6 yr old) passed through very quickly after 3 photos and 2 sets of fingerprints. We all got a stamp as well in our passports, which was nice.

 

[Seehof]

Anybody been to Germany recently and can say what the airports are like especially Berlin, Munich and Stuttgart.

 

[1D54]

Anybody been to Germany recently and can say what the airports are like especially Berlin, Munich and Stuttgart.

BER 5 weeks ago and it was business as usual. Not using any sort of machines and the usual questions being asked for selected people such as how long are you staying and have you got a hotel booked.

 

[AlterEgo]

BER 5 weeks ago and it was business as usual. Not using any sort of machines and the usual questions being asked for selected people such as how long are you staying and have you got a hotel booked.

Had an identical experience last week.

 

[island]

no EES operating in VIE when I arrived on Thursday or departed today

 

[chrisjo]

Leaving Malaga yesterday the only fingerprint/photo terminals that we saw in use were located right at the passport-stamping booths, with the passport-stampers giving instructions to each person as they attempted to use them. From what we saw it wasn't a quick process but there weren't huge queues, the airport itself was the quietest we've ever seen it. A bank of machines on the opposite wall were not being used.

We've still not been 'done' because my partner has to use a PRM buggy and we were just looked at and exit-stamped (same on the way in a week ago, when we saw no machines in use at all).

Horror stories are still rife in the pages of local english-language newspapers, and I believe there was a letter published in the Daily Telegraph a few days ago?

 

[cactustwirly]

No EES at Dover yet, but Dunkerque ferry port is operating EES on the French exit checks.
They took a picture and passed the fingerprint readers out to my car

 

[JKF]

Worked perfectly at Porto for me on Saturday morning, only had to wait for one person in front of me in the queue and took a couple of minutes to do the whole process including the normal passport check. Being fairly early in the day (10am arrival) may have helped. I think they did still stamp my passport.

 

[MalaiseForever]

Time to leave the Canaries tomorrow via Tenerife South - I am expecting the worse after my arrival experience.

 

[FinsburyPark]

When is Dover doing it for everyone. Is it new years day?

 

[Howardh]

I'm trying, and currently failing, to pick a small EU airport to fly to which won't be busy and I can "get it done" - thought of flying LCY to Rotterdam; however what worries me is this summer, even if I've been processed, it will still take hours to get through the queues at places like Malaga, Ibiza, Palma etc..

Because of medical issues, I might see if I can get assistance - never even considered that before.