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European capitals have rounded on Brussels over the botched roll-out of new post-Brexit border rules which threaten to plunge next week’s Great Summer Getaway into chaos.
It emerged today that nine EU countries wrote to Eurocrats warning the bloc still wasn’t ready to fully implement the strict new controls, urging further easing of them to avoid queues of five hours or more this summer and beyond.
It came as easyJet boss Kenton Jarvis joined the rebellion by calling for a review, branding border queues already witnessed in recent weeks ‘completely unacceptable’.
Speaking to the Mail, he also revealed that the new rules, known as the EU’s Entry-Exit System (EES), now account for more than a third of delays on UK-EU flights.
The signatories to the letter included Germany and France, which is significant because they are the bloc’s two most important powerbrokers and Paris usually militantly toes the Brussels line.
Switzerland, Belgium, Greece, Italy, Malta, the Netherlands and Portugal, who all have sizeable tourism industries, also joined the growing rebellion by signing it.
It comes ahead of the Great Summer Getaway, which will start next weekend when many schools break up for the holiday season until September.
Nine EU countries wrote to the bloc's home affairs Commissioner, Magnus Brunner, saying there had been ‘significant difficulties’ with rolling out the new EES
Passengers were forced to endure queues of three hours at Milan Linate in April, leaning many easyJet passengers due to fly to Manchester stranded
Global and European aviation chiefs have previously written to Brussels warning queues of up to 5 hours are already forming at European airports thanks to the EU's new EES system
Today, the Tories taunted Labour over the debacle.
Richard Holden, the shadow transport secretary, said that despite Sir Keir Starmer repeatedly ‘cosying up’ to Eurocrats, the Prime Minister had failed to guarantee chaos-free holidays for Britons.
He said it was a further slap in the face for fliers after Labour hiked Air Passenger Duty, also known as the ‘holiday tax’, by an inflation-busting 15 per cent, pushing up the cost of foreign getaways.
And Mr Jarvis said: ‘The EES delays that some customers continue to face are completely unacceptable.
‘Border authorities must make full use of the permitted flexibilities now, and if this cannot be done effectively, the system must be reviewed and those flexibilities extended beyond their September cliff edge, to ensure our customers do not continue being disrupted.’
He said bottlenecks were particularly bad in Portugal, Malta and the Canary and Balearic Islands in Spain.
Brussels has allowed 29 countries who are members of the bloc’s Schengen zone, which are subject to the new rules, to suspend the system for short windows during busy times.
But national border forces are supposed to re-apply every time there are bottlenecks and only when a problem arises, rather than proactively.
Critics say these flexibilities, currently allowed until September, should be further extended and that Eurocrats should even consider suspending the new system completely if long queues at airports and land crossings are likely.
In their letter dated 7 July to the EU’s home affairs Commissioner, Magnus Brunner, the nine EU capitals said there had been ‘significant difficulties’ with rolling out the system.
While they reiterated their support for it in the long-run, they said the current flexibilities available should be extended beyond September.
Under the EES system, which came into effect on 10 April this year, the EU requires non-EU citizens to give their biometric details - which include a facial photograph and fingerprints - before entering the bloc's free movement Schengen zone.
When travelling by air, this usually happens after landing at electronic booths and passport kiosks. At the ports of Dover and Folkestone, before crossing into France, the checks happen this side of the Channel, meaning long queues of cars can form in Kent.
EasyJet boss Kenton Jarvis called for a review of the EES system, branding border queues already witnessed in recent weeks ‘completely unacceptable’
The EU's new EES system requires registering biometric data on entry and exit, but some airports don't have adequate infrastructure or staffing levels
Plans by Greece, Portugal and Italy to exempt Britons, who the system applies to because of Brexit, this summer have previously been rebuffed by the EU Commission in Brussels
Passengers are also supposed to undergo the checks when leaving countries to return to the UK to ensure people are not breaking visa restrictions by overstaying in the bloc.
However, queues of up to five hours have been reported by some airports because a number of hubs do not have enough new infrastructure and staff to deal with passenger levels, with processing times now on average taking longer.
There are fears that once the peak summer season gets underway, and passenger numbers spike, there could be queues of longer than five hours at some hubs.
UK passengers were left stranded in an Italian airport in April due to the EES system. Around 100 passengers due to return to Manchester Airport on an EasyJet flight from Milan's Linate airport were stuck in three-hour queues as their flight departed without them.
Plans by Greece, Portugal and Italy to exempt Britons, who the system applies to because of Brexit, this summer have previously been rebuffed by Brussels.
An EU Commission spokesman said: ‘The advantages of the new system for the EU are evident: It increases the security of EU citizens and replaces paper stamping with a modern system of registration and checks.
‘We already see very clear security benefits. At the same time all efforts are being made to limit the impact on travellers from outside the EU.’