The European Union has once again relaxed its Entry/Exit System (EES) border checks for at least nine countries after warnings that full enforcement would cause huge delays at frontiers.
France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Greece, Malta, Portugal, Italy and Switzerland are understood to have been allowed to delay full implementation of the system in order to "maintain border fluidity."
The EES requires British and other non-EU citizens to provide fingerprints and a facial scan when entering the 29 countries that make up the Schengen zone, Europe's passport-free travel area. The scheme began its roll-out last October after years of delay, and officials had expected it to be fully in force by April.
Grace period expired last week
Facing the prospect of long queues caused by software failings, officials granted countries a 150-day grace period during which checks could be dropped to avoid travel chaos. That safety valve expired last Sunday, with the EU insisting there would be no extension.
But at least nine Schengen countries are understood to have told the European Commission, which oversees the EES, that they would not enforce the new controls in full until the technology was working correctly. Brussels informally agreed to let them continue.
"The phrase is 'maintaining border fluidity,'" Eurostar chief executive Gwendoline Cazenave told The Sunday Times after meeting officials from the French interior ministry earlier this month. "[The EU] know they need to maintain border fluidity."
Eurostar operates high-speed rail services between the UK and mainland Europe, including the London to Paris and Brussels routes, and has a direct stake in how smoothly border checks run at its terminals.
Airlines and airports piled on pressure
The climbdown follows sustained pressure on Brussels from airlines, airports and ports. Ryanair has urged the EU to extend the option to suspend EES until next April. The UK Government has also lobbied to ensure the system would not be strictly enforced beyond September 6.
The European Commission declined to comment. Officials have repeatedly insisted the EES is working well, despite what the article describes as a swathe of evidence to the contrary.
"We're going to have a huge problem if we can't switch the system off," said Thomas Reynaert of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), a global airline trade body. "Even with flexibility, we've seen operational difficulties, technical failures and instability across multiple airports."
Problems have been reported both in uploading initial scans to a central database and in border officials later trying to retrieve that data.
