EU delays (again) new electronic system for border checks, floats phased-in approach
The Entry/Exit System is a complete reform to modernise checks on the EU’s exterior borders and promote information-sharing.
The European Fee has determined to delay the introduction of the Entry/Exit System (EES), the bloc’s automated registry for short-stay travellers that was anticipated to return into power on 10 November.
The announcement was made by Ylva Johansson, the Commissioner for House Affairs, on the finish of a gathering of EU inside ministers on Thursday the place the difficulty was mentioned.
“tenth of November is not on the desk,” Johansson informed reporters, noting that Germany, France and the Netherlands had declared their unreadiness.
“I hope we are able to begin as quickly as doable however there is no new timeline to date. This additionally will depend on the authorized evaluation that we’ll do and we’re engaged on it proper now.”
Johannson spoke of “some considerations relating to the resilience of the system.”
As a substitute, she mentioned, the EU may introduce the EES in a phased-in method “with a little bit step-by-step going into the system, not a Huge Bang of all border crossing factors on the identical time.”
Nevertheless, that method just isn’t foreseen beneath the present regulation and “focused amendments” to the authorized textual content can be required to make it occur.
At any charge, she confused, the gradual introduction wouldn’t begin on 10 November.
What’s the Entry/Exit System?
The EES is a complete reform that dates again to 2016 and had been repeatedly delayed. Its primary goal is to modernise checks on the EU’s exterior borders and change the standard bodily stamping of passports.
It should apply to non-EU residents who come to the bloc for visits, holidays or enterprise journeys and keep for a complete length of as much as 90 days inside a 180-day interval.
As soon as the system goes reside, guests should present their passports on arrival, alongside having a photograph of their face taken and their fingerprints scanned electronically.
All entries and exits from the passport-free Schengen Space shall be recorded.
The gathering of biometric information and the sharing of data in actual time are supposed to assist authorities crack down on those that overstay their short-term visas and commit id fraud.
All member states, besides Cyprus and Eire, and 4 Schengen-associate nations – Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland – will participate within the scheme.
Passports in Cyprus and Eire will proceed to be stamped manually.
