British Skiers Warned To Be Aware of New EU Entry-Exit System (EES)

British skiers have been advised to be aware of new EU Border checks that are likely to cause additional delays.

The EU and other countries in the Schengen free travel area are due to start rolling out increased border checks from November, just as the ski season gets started.

Brits who do not have EU passports will have to visit a booth on arrival at the EU or Schengen nation's border to complete fingerprinting and facial recognition checks.

There's not believed to be anything Brits who don't hold EU passports can do in advance to make the process quicker or easier for themselves, but the advice is to be prepared for a wait entering the EU/Schengen zone.

Implementation of the scheme has already been delayed to November to avoid problems for Brits arriving at the Paris Olympics or in the October school holidays and there are reports of further delays being likely, but the largest reports say these may just be weeks, not months.

There are concerns the registration process, which the EU says should average one minute per person, will cause fresh long Brexit-related border delays, however once an individual is registered the EU argues that the arrival/departure process will then be faster than the current manual passport checks and stamping procedure which returned from the past after the Brexit vote.

The port of Dover has been highlighted as the location where significant delays are most likely to occur with The Guardian reporting Ashford Borough Council warned of a worst-case scenario involving delays of up to 14 hours.

Almost every central and western European country, including most that are not in the EU, are part of the Schengen free travel area. Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Romania joined in 2023 or 2024, in some cases after a decade plus wait for acceptance to join. However, Ireland has never joined whilst the UK government removed the United Kingdom from the scheme on the back of the Brexit vote.

There was a German language article about the EES on the Swiss news site Watson recently https://www.watson.ch/international/schweiz/947920565-neue-einreiseregeln-im-schengenraum-drohen-warteschlangen-am-flughafen

Zurich airport officials told Watson that it currently takes 24 seconds to check travellers from third countries without a visa requirement i.e. USA, UK, etc. Upon the introduction of the EES this will increase to 93 seconds for first-time entries and 67 seconds for subsequent entries. After they have been photographed and fingerprinted at one of the electronic kiosks travellers will be asked by a border guard about the reason for their journey and stay, the border guard will then assess whether the answers are credible. They will also check whether the travel documents are genuine, recognised and valid and whether the photo in the passport matches the person standing in front of them.

If you are planning to stay with friends or relatives, it would be a good idea to get them to send you a written invitation, hand signed and dated, in one of the official Swiss languages.

To ease the delays, the Zürich Cantonal Police, who are responsible for border checks at Zurich Airport, have been given the go-ahead to recruit an additional 41 border guards to carry out the checks. As Switzerland is currently experiencing a severe labour shortage, it's thought that they may struggle to find enough suitable candidates.

Border control at Basel and Geneva airports is carried out by the Federal Office for Customs and Border Security (FCBS), they are not planning to increase the number of border guards. The introduction of the entry/exit system will be implemented with existing staff. For the introductory phase, the airports will be "moderately supported with internal resources". An on-call team will be available to deal with special cases.