On top of fears about extreme heat and possible jet fuel shortages, Britons planning summer holidays in the EU this year had another thing to worry about – long queues and waiting times caused by the bloc’s new border checks. The EU digital entry and exit system (EES), which requires non-EU citizens to register and be photographed and fingerprinted on arrival and departure from the Schengen zone, has been technically in full force since April after launching last autumn, but has been beset by teething problems. Despite reports of passengers facing three-hour delays and missed connections, Brussels rejected calls by airports and airlines to suspend the implementation of the scheme over the peak summer period.
However, border police have been allowed to relax requirements if queues become unmanageable under an opt-out that expires next month. Those who shared with the Guardian their experiences of the system since its introduction highlighted a range of problems and snags. One of the main purposes of the system is to track whether non-EU citizens have spent more than their permitted 90 days in the bloc in a rolling 180-day period.
However, Martin Farrall, a retired university professor, says his EES record failed to record his exit from the Schengen zone and he had to chase the authorities to update it. In May, the 67-year-old and his wife arrived by ferry at Hoek van Holland at the start of their camping trip in Denmark, both with a full residency allowance. Martin says the Dutch border police enrolled them into EES “But no entry stamp was made on our passports,” he adds.
The French border police asked us where and when we entered Schengen, and we were handed back our passports without an exit stamp.” Once home, Martin checked his residency tally and found that instead of having 35 days left it was rapidly diminishing. He was concerned that he would be registered as an “overstayer” at risk of refusal of entry in future. He reported the error to the Directorate General for Foreign Nationals in France on 13 July but says he has not received a response..
When Martin checked on his day allowance again on 7 August, the EES website said he had zero days left, but when he looked on 17 August it had updated. When I checked my wife’s passport she apparently has 90 days left despite us both having the same travel to Schengen history. So God only knows what’s going on.
She made two trips to Schengen areas this summer with very contrasting experiences. A trip to Tenerife in June was “quite straightforward”, but her experience in July at Frankfurt airport where she was picking up a connecting flight home, was much less so. There was no one nearby to check with without losing your place.” Eventually, her passport was checked.
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