Nine countries delay full EES checks amid technical problems – report

At least nine Schengen countries have been allowed to delay full implementation of the EU’s Entry/Exit System to maintain the flow of passengers at their borders, according to a report in The Sunday Times.

France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Greece, Malta, Portugal, Italy and Switzerland are understood to have told the European Commission they would not enforce the new controls in full until technical problems with the system were resolved.

The newspaper reported that Brussels had informally permitted them to do so, with no apparent time limit on the arrangement.

Spain continues to apply the EES at all its external entry points.

The system is also in place at Joshua Hassan International Airport, where Schengen checks are conducted after Gibraltar immigration controls as part of treaty arrangements.

The EES requires British and other non-EU nationals entering the 29 countries in the Schengen area to provide biometric information, including fingerprints and a facial scan.

Gibraltar residents are exempted from EES controls under the treaty arrangements.

The system began to be rolled out in October 2025 and was initially expected to be fully operational by April this year.

But concerns over software problems and the prospect of lengthy queues led EU officials to introduce a 150-day period during which countries could suspend some checks to prevent disruption.

That flexibility expired on September 6 and the EU had previously indicated it would not be extended.

However, The Sunday Times reported that several countries had since made clear they would not fully apply the system while problems remained.

Gwendoline Cazenave, the chief executive of Eurostar, told The Sunday Times after meeting French interior ministry officials earlier this month: “The phrase is ‘maintaining border fluidity’.”

“They [the EU] know that they need to maintain border fluidity.”

The European Commission declined to comment on the report.

Airlines, airports and ports have raised concerns about the system, with Ryanair calling for the option to suspend EES checks to remain available until next April.

Thomas Reynaert, senior vice-president for external affairs at the International Air Transport Association, warned of difficulties if operators were unable to suspend the system when required.

“We’re going to have a huge problem if we can’t switch the system off. Even with flexibility, we’ve seen operational difficulties, technical failures and instability across multiple airports,” he said.

The system operates through national border infrastructure linked to a central database managed by eu-LISA, the EU agency responsible for large-scale IT systems.

Passport details are uploaded when a traveller first enters the Schengen area, while facial scans and fingerprints are supposed to be collected at the border and matched with the central record.

On subsequent visits, a smaller amount of information should be collected and checked against the existing file.

But The Sunday Times reported that technical problems had affected the process in two main ways.

In some countries biometric information was being collected but was not reaching the central eu-LISA system. In other cases, border officials were unable to access travellers’ existing files, meaning the registration process had to be repeated.

The newspaper said many biometric scanners bought by airports and ports remained unused as a result.

The report also said Apostolos Tzitzikostas, the European Commissioner for Sustainable Transport and Tourism, had privately assured UK Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander earlier this summer that the EES would not be strictly enforced beyond September 6.