The article below is an excerpt from Simon Calder’s travel newsletter. To get the latest from Simon delivered straight to your inbox, simply enter your email address in the box above.
Six months ago, I was looking forward to this moment: being able to tell you that, as of Friday 10 April 2026, the EU entry-exit system is in full operation across all Schengen area frontiers, from Canary Island airports to the Norwegian border with Russia in the Arctic. I wanted to write that 100 per cent of third-country nationals, including the British, are being processed in accordance with “the most modern digital border management system in the world”.
Let me remind you what is supposed to happen. You arrive at a foreign airport or ferry port. You find an array of kiosks lined up to process arriving travellers. You submit your passport as requested. The system will know whether or not you have been registered on the database. If you haven’t, you will be asked to give fingerprints from your right hand and provide a facial biometric. If you have previously registered, the system will know and ask only for one biometric (probably the face). You then proceed to a human border official or, perhaps, an eGate, and go through.
Since the stuttering start I witnessed at Prague airport on 12 October 2025, it has been a bit of an EES lottery: will they want my fingerprints and facial biometric, or won’t they? I wanted to say all that is at an end. And, with the passport pages of many frequent travellers filling alarmingly fast with European entry and exit stamps, “wet stamping” has ended as planned.
Instead, on the day the EES is supposed to be working for everyone everywhere, the system is in disarray. Some nations in the Schengen area are scrupulously processing UK and other third-country nationals in accordance with the rules laid down by Brussels. Member states have typically installed ranks of EES kiosks – equipped to take facial biometrics and fingerprints – at each frontier. But in some countries – notably France, the most popular country in the world for overseas visitors – they are far from ready.
At the three UK locations where frontier formalities are “juxtaposed” – with French Police aux Frontières conducting checks on British soil – ranks of kiosks are standing forlorn and unused. The percentage of travellers using these expensive machines at the Eurotunnel LeShuttle terminal at Folkestone, the Port of Dover and the Eurostar hub at London St Pancras International isn’t 100 per cent. It’s zero, because of connectivity problems on the French side. Instead, your passport details will be skimmed by an officer – EES minus, if you like.
Elsewhere, I am hearing from many travellers that they have provided the required facial biometric and fingerprints, typically on their way into a Schengen area country, but then have to provide both once again – either on the way out, on a subsequent entry, or both. I call this “EES plus”.
There is a third category: “What EES?” In this case, passports will continue to be stamped as now. This fiasco is set to continue through the summer for 150 more days, to Monday 7 September – handily, at the end of the main summer holidays. Until then, all you can do is obey the local instructions. Good luck, everyone.
The appeal of Europe beyond the EU
“Welcome to Kosovo,” the frontier guard smiled as she handed back the passport. The transaction took 15 seconds. I had just touched down in the capital, Pristina, after a cheap and cheerful Wizz Air flight. Ibrahim from Birmingham, whom I had met in the queue at gate 23 at Luton Airport, was a short way behind. We had agreed to share a taxi into town. But he emerged with a friend he had made during the flight, who was in turn being met by a pal with a car – and would I like a lift? Twenty minutes later, I was at the splendid City Inn, which offered a novel approach to guest entertainment: “Predict the score of the PSG v Liverpool match and win a glass of wine.” You don’t get that at Premier Inn.
For the past few days, I have been travelling through “Europe Beyond” – the few remaining Balkan states that are not (yet) part of the European Union. The time I spend in Kosovo and Albania does not count towards the 90-day limit in any 180 days spent in the EU, which the UK happily signed up for after Brexit. Nor will I experience the current Schengen border lottery.
Spring is an ideal time to be on the road in south-east Europe. Snow still haunts the higher mountain ranges that divide the region more effectively than any borders humans could conceive. Tucked into the folds of a shady valley among the foothills close to the Kosovo–Albania border, the Decani Monastery is a gallery of religious art at its 14th-century peak. Oddly, I shared this astonishing Orthodox masterpiece with a handful of Italian troops and Polish police. Both cohorts have been deployed to protect one of the world’s wonders: a Serbian monument in Kosovan territory. Cross-border tension runs deep.
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