Simon Calder: Greece rules out summer border delays for Britons
simon calder reports that British holidaymakers heading to Greece will not face border delays or biometric checks during the summer season. Greek tourism minister Olga Kefalogianni said the country wants visitors to move through entry points without being burdened by bureaucratic procedures.
She said frontier checks should take “less than a couple of minutes” and added: “What we're doing is not actually an exemption. It's just that we have made sure that we facilitate the procedure in a way that means visitors are not burdened.”
Greek summer travel
The assurance matters because Greece is one of the first countries to apply the EU’s new digital border procedure, known as the entry-exit system, after the EU completed its introduction in April. The system requires short-term visitors from outside the EU and the European Economic Area to register biometric data each time they enter or leave the Schengen free travel zone, including fingerprints and a facial scan the first time they cross.
Greece said it has successfully started the full operation of the Entry-Exit System, but it also suspended biometric checks on UK visitors in early April after long queues built up at Corfu airport. Those queues are the friction point now: the country is keeping the system in place, but not forcing British holidaymakers through delays that have already disrupted travel elsewhere in Europe.
Corfu and Milan queues
Passengers in some parts of the EU have already faced queues of up to three hours under the new system. Last month, more than 100 people missed their EasyJet flight to Manchester from Milan's Linate airport after passport queues, and other passengers due to travel with Ryanair from Milan Bergamo airport to Manchester also missed their flight because of passport control problems.
The European Commission said last week that Portugal and Italy do not plan on exempting British nationals from the new checks, and EU rules allow EES checks to be suspended briefly only when airports become very congested. Those rules also prohibit blanket exemptions for citizens of a particular country, which leaves Greece taking a narrower route: full operation of the system, but a summer pause on biometric checks for British visitors.
EU rules and Greece
Kefalogianni also said reports of possible shortages of jet fuel leading to price rises or cancellations had made tourists more hesitant to travel, with jet fuel supplies from the Gulf slowing to a trickle since the US-Israel war with Iran erupted more than two months ago. For British travellers heading to Greece, the immediate takeaway is simpler: the border process should stay quick through the summer season, even as other European airports continue to struggle with the new system.
