Great barrier grief: that is what the UK government promises to end, at least for British travellers to Germany.
“Millions of UK travellers to Germany will be able to use e-gates in the future thanks to a new agreement made between prime minister Keir Starmer and German chancellor Friedrich Merz today,” the Cabinet Office says.
“Germany will roll out the first phase of e-gates access for UK travellers by the end of August, starting with frequent travellers such as Brits with family in Germany or who travel regularly for business.”
I have asked the government how exactly this will work: how do the e-gates (or the staff in charge) know whether I have family in Germany? In the absence of a a cousin in Cologne or a daughter in Dresden, might I squeak in as a regular business traveller? I have also asked how frequently must I visit to qualify.
In any event, once through the e-gates a smiling German official will need to stamp my passport– in accordance with what the UK demanded when leaving the European Union.
Boris Johnson’s fearless negotiators insisted that we must become “third-country nationals” not required to obtain a visa.
Brussels capitulated to our wish to spend hours waiting in queues; to discover that rules on passports validity meant thousands would be turned away from planes; and to have our documents minutely examined to ensure we have not spent more than 90 days in the past 180 days within the Schengen area.
Our illustrious status is shared with many other citizens, from East Timor to El Salvador. But unlike them, the British traditionally make tens of millions of journeys to the EU each year.
We would love to make more of those trips by rail, but the tangle of red tape we negotiated means there isn’t enough space for processing passengers at London St Pancras International, the Eurostar hub. Yet here’s the the transport secretary, Heidi Alexander, promising “a direct connection linking London and Berlin” could be in place “in just a matter of years”.
The press was briefed that trains from the UK to Germany could be running by 2030. Allow me to present an equally plausible transport goal for the next five years: “Personal jet packs for all.”
Even with more plausible, if desperate, claims such as “Estonia has confirmed they will open up access at Tallinn airport in 2026”, the UK government surely knows it is clutching at bureaucratic straws.
A courageous ministers should yell from the rooftops something that the most ardent Leave voter must accept: “Brexit has proved deeply damaging for British travellers to Europe, and we need to fix it.”
Tourists, students and business travellers have all suffered from the route of self-harm after the democratic vote to leave the European Union.
Your ease of access to Continental Europe this summer depends on your ancestry. UK citizens wise enough to have close relatives in Ireland, north or south, can obtain an EU passport and regain the travel freedom we chose to surrender. But it’s nothing more than a lottery where the right DNA and/or birthplace can win you the right to roam across Europe.
For everyone else: we need to negotiate a special status that reflects our passion for Europe – and the UK’s value as one of the biggest exporters of tourists in the world.
