UK MPs Warn of Dover Congestion as EU Entry/Exit System Falters

British MPs have warned that the port of Dover and cross-Channel ferry passengers face severe congestion this summer unless technical problems with the European Union’s Entry/Exit System are fixed or the checks are suspended before peak holiday traffic arrives.

The EES, which launched last October, is the bloc’s biometric border system for non-EU nationals: on entry to the Schengen area it records a traveler’s fingerprints and facial image and logs the crossing, replacing manual passport stamps. At Dover, the port reclaimed land from the sea and installed 84 automatic kiosks to run those checks, but according to the home affairs select committee the kiosks cannot be used because of problems with technology supplied by France.

The committee’s chair, Karen Bradley, said the panel had seen the site first-hand and urged the government to apply maximum pressure on the French authorities, warning of “utter chaos next week” and miles of tailbacks otherwise. The port said EES checks at the start of the May half-term holiday produced four and a half hours of delays, expects almost 50 percent more vehicles this summer, and has modelled traffic queueing out of the port and onto public roads.

The warning follows the EU’s decision this week to reject calls from airports and airlines to suspend the system’s biometric checks, even as it acknowledged around 20 border crossing points, out of some 1,500, where the technology was causing tailbacks. The strain has been felt across the continent, with the International Air Transport Association pointing to delays in Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece, and Belgium, and the pressure to pause the checks has been building for weeks, with airlines and airports asking the EU to allow a summer suspension of the biometric border checks. The rollout has struggled since launch, and a Frontex official has warned the system could take up to two years to stabilize.

The Home Office minister Alex Norris told MPs the government would push France to use available flexibilities to prioritize the flow of people at the border during peak periods, but said he would not treat a full suspension of the EES as a goal, saying he did not believe it was deliverable. A discretionary power letting border officers temporarily suspend the system runs only until September.

Sources: The Guardian

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By Ali Nassar-Smith