The European Union is again postponing the introduction of biometric border checks for third country nationals, just a month before its implementation.
In August, the European Union promised that the long-awaited “entry-exit system” (EES) was to be implemented on 10 November 2024. The plan envisaged that at every border in the Schengen area (which includes all EU states except Cyprus and Ireland, as well as Iceland, Norway and Switzerland), passport stamping would stop and instead entries and exits would be recorded in a central database along with biometric information.
However, exactly one month before the EES was due to go live, the EU revealed that the European Commission had postponed its implementation indefinitely.
The launch of the system was postponed because Germany, France and the Netherlands announced that their systems were not ready.
A spokesman for the German interior ministry told Reuters news agency that the three countries were not ready to implement the system because the EU body responsible, EU-Lisa, had not yet made it strong enough.
For its part, the French Interior Ministry told Reuters that the EES needed to be properly prepared.
The BBC reported that EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson said there was no new timetable for its implementation, but that it would be phased in.
A tersely worded report on a Justice and Home Affairs Council meeting on 10 October revealed: “To ensure a smooth transition, the Commission outlined plans for the phased implementation of the EES. The details of this approach will be defined in the coming weeks.”
The report said that a pilot project would be launched first and that the biometric requirements could be postponed even further.
There is no longer any prospect that the system will be operational before the end of 2024.
The system was originally due to be introduced in 2022, but has suffered several delays.
The original plan provided for third-country nationals entering the Schengen Free Travel Area to have their fingerprints and biometric facial data taken and to answer questions about their stay – instead of simply receiving a stamp on their passport.
However, the system appears to have been watered down, with the Commission saying the plan is now to “scan fingerprints or take photographs of those crossing the border for the first time”.
The EU Justice and Home Affairs Council will meet next week to discuss the introduction of the EES.
What is EES
“The world’s most modern digital border management system”, according to the European Commission. “An automated IT system for registering third-country nationals travelling to the EU for a short stay”.
The system is aimed at all third-country nationals when either entering or leaving Schengen external borders – such as when flying from the UK to Spain or driving from Greece to Turkey. It will not be used at internal borders within the Schengen area.
The EES will record the date and place of entry or exit. This system, says the European Union, “will replace the current system of manual stamping of passports, which is time-consuming, does not provide reliable data on border crossings and does not allow systematic detection of offenders”.
