Europe’s New Border System Is Falling Apart Country By Country

When Greece suspended its biometric border checks for tourists last month, it looked like a one-off move by a country that couldn’t afford to lose its summer visitors.

Three weeks later, it’s starting to look more like the beginning of the end.

The Domino Effect

Portugal is now waving passengers through passport control whenever queues get too long, skipping the fingerprint and facial scan process entirely and reverting to the old passport stamp.

Italy is expected to formally suspend the system before the end of May. At Milan’s Malpensa airport alone, over 100 travelers missed flights in a single weekend because biometric processing couldn’t keep up with passenger volume.

And the list keeps growing. Switzerland pulled the plug after 4-hour queues at Zurich and Geneva. Germany suspended checks at its busiest airports. France eased enforcement at Charles de Gaulle. Spain has been applying the rules inconsistently for weeks.

Travel industry analysts now predict that Spain, France, and Croatia will follow Greece’s lead before summer peaks in July.

Why Countries Are Breaking Ranks

The math is simple. Greece receives nearly 5 million British tourists a year, worth about €3.5 billion to its economy.

When a border system causes visitors to miss flights and spend hundreds of dollars on rebookings, it becomes a direct threat to the country’s biggest industry.

The same calculation applies across Southern Europe. Tourism-dependent countries are choosing their economies over Brussels.

Seamus McCauley of Holiday Extras put it bluntly: countries are not going to sit back and watch Greece take their trade just because it dropped a system that wasn’t working properly.

He called the rollout “an utter fiasco” and predicted the whole system could collapse like a house of cards.

Ryanair Goes on the Attack

Europe’s biggest airline isn’t quiet about it. On May 1st, Ryanair demanded that France suspend EES immediately, accusing the French authorities of failing to prepare despite having three years of notice.

Ryanair’s Chief Operations Officer Neil McMahon said governments were trying to roll out a half-baked IT system in the middle of the busiest travel season. His proposed fix? suspend the whole thing until September.

The airline also moved its airport check-in cutoff from 40 minutes to a full hour before departure, specifically to account for EES delays.

Flying to Europe This Summer?

The suspensions are real but come with a catch. Most of the confirmed exemptions specifically cover British passport holders.

Greece, for example, has only officially announced its suspension for UK passports. There has been no formal announcement extending it to Americans.

That said, American visitors are a huge market for these countries, and making them wait 3 hours at passport control while British tourists breeze through would be hard to justify.

If you’re flying directly into Greece, Portugal, or Italy this summer, you may avoid the worst of the delays.

But if your route connects through a country still enforcing the full system – like a layover at Paris CDG or Amsterdam Schiphol – you’ll face biometric checks there regardless of your final destination.

France’s situation is particularly frustrating for Americans. Its automated Parafe e-gates still don’t process US passports, meaning you’re stuck in the manual line even if you’ve already registered your biometrics on a previous trip.

90-Day Clock Is Ticking

The EU built a release valve into the legislation. Countries can suspend EES checks for up to 90 days after the April 10 rollout, with a possible 60-day extension.

That means the suspensions could legally last through early September at most.

After that, every country is supposed to go back to full biometric checks. Whether that actually happens depends on whether the system’s technical problems get fixed over the summer – and right now, nobody seems confident they will.

The airline industry group A4E has called the rollout a “systemic failure.” Airport association ACI Europe says Europe’s reputation as an accessible destination is at stake.

And the European Commission hasn’t offered much beyond confirming that the flexibility window exists.

For travelers booking summer flights, the practical advice hasn’t changed: arrive earlier than you think you need to, download the EU’s Travel to Europe app to pre-register your data where it’s available, and pick your entry airport carefully.

The country you land in could be the difference between a 10-minute passport check and a 3-hour ordeal.