New EU border security is causing airport chaos
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You shall not pass through Europe without waiting in line to provide biometrics, despite protest from top travel officials. This week, the EU rejected calls from the aviation industry to suspend new fingerprinting and facial recognition border controls that have led to hourslong disruptions at some European airports.
ICYMI: The new Entry/Exit System (EES), which launched in April, requires all 25 EU members (plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland) to collect biometrics from noncitizens upon entry and confirm their identities upon departure.
But the confusing system is making some would-be visitors reconsider traveling to Europe:With airports reporting insufficient border control staffing, vacation hot spots like Spain and Italy have been plagued by delays and missed connecting flights.
Nearly every day this summer, airports in Rome have had to partially suspend the system’s biometric collection, which can be done for only six hours at a time.
Though EU officials admitted that EES is “not perfect,” they said the benefits outweigh the costs—about 44,500 travelers have been turned away at the border under the new system. The second-most-common reason for denied entry was overstaying 90 days of visitation, a violation that dual-nationality passengers previously could evade by using multiple passports.