EES delayed again

Last updated: Thursday 10th October

The EU has called off the Entry/Exit System a month before launch

A meeting of EU Home Affairs ministers in Luxembourg today admitted that the Entry/Exit System would not be ready to go live on the proposed launch date of 10th November, after protests by the French, German and Dutch governments that the technology was not properly in place to prevent chaos at airports and ports.

UK holidaymakers with trips to EU destinations from 10th November will be happy to hear that the new paperwork will not interrupt their trip. Canny holidaymakers who hadn't yet booked their winter sun may also spot some bargains from the weekend of 9th November, as people were putting off booking a trip until the impact of the new scheme was clear. So now there are cheap deals to Spain, Italy, France and Denmark, among others.

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What is EES?

EES, or the EU's creatively named Entry/Exit System, is a new automated passport checking system that was expected to come into use on 10th November this year. It has now been indefinitely postponed. Ylva Johansson, EU Commissioner for Home Affairs who announced the delay on Thursday 10th November, said that the intention was now to roll it out on a more gradual basis. But since the EU has neither the legal nor technical framework to do so, that's effectively the same as saying "back to the drawing board".

At the moment, when we visit the EU we have our passports checked and stamped manually. The plan is still to replace it with the EES and automate the process at some future date. The idea is that it will drastically speed up the process by automating everything, but the reality was that the initial roll-out was expected to cause delays. This is because each visitor would have to provide biometric data for the first time using the new technology, which would take a bit longer than any future automated checks, or the current manual system.

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What countries are part of the EES scheme?

Here's the full list:

Austria	Belgium	Bulgaria
Czech Republic	Croatia	Denmark
Estonia	Finland	France
Germany	Greece	Hungary
Iceland	Italy	Latvia
Liechtenstein	Lithuania	Luxembourg
Malta	Netherlands	Norway
Poland	Portugal	Romania
Slovakia	Slovenia	Spain
Sweden	Switzerland

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Why has it been delayed?

The French, German and Dutch governments got together to point out that the technology wasn't ready, especially for the scheme to be implemented all in one go on a single day. They predicted severe delays at airports and ports, especially the sea-crossing between Dover and Calais.

eu-LISA, the agency responsible for large-scale EU tech projects and architects of the scheme, were working on an app that would allow passengers to the EU the opportunity to pre-register for EES. That would relieve the burden of collecting biometric ID at airports and ports as people arrived en masse into the EU. That app, or the technology to support it, was not ready for launch.

One possible solution to finding a new launch date is to wait until that app is ready, so that visitors to the EU can enter their details before they travel. But "when the app is ready" would still mean an indefinite delay to the scheme in practice, since it would be up to individual countries to build their own front-end so that their holidaymakers could access and use it.

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Do I need to do anything now?

Have a look to see if there's a cheap holiday in the Canaries the weekend of 10th November? Beyond that, no. Nothing's going to happen for months.

Some airlines and holiday companies have sent out alerts to people due to fly after 10th November, warning them about possible disruptions. Those disruptions will no longer occur, so it's just one less thing to worry about.

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What's it actually for?

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People who don't live in the EU, which includes UK nationals, are only allowed to visit for 90 days in any 180 day period. There isn't currently a database of who's visited, so the EU can't enforce the 90-day rule with their manual system.

This electronic database should be quicker in the long run, once all the initial expected delays settle down. And it's the precursor to the new ETIAS scheme which was always planned to launch six months after EES.

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What's happened to ETIAS?

ETIAS is different from EES.

It's a visa waiver programme that anyone visiting the EU from outside (which includes UK nationals) will need to buy to be allowed in. It'll cost around £6 for anyone between 18 and 70 – anyone outside of those ages can get it for free. It'll last for three years or until your passport runs out – whichever is sooner.

Unlike the EES, you will need to apply for the ETIAS before you travel.

It was expected to be launched in May 2025, six months after EES. Now it will be delayed until some time, probably six months, after EES is fully rolled out. That now seems likely to be a long way off.

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