You might remember the term “Grexit”. It was floating around towards the end of the last decade when there was talk that Greece might follow the UK in taking the brave decision to leave the European Union. You will have noticed that never happened. Neither did the rumours that Greece might tumble out of the euro – abandoning the single currency in favour of a new drachma – come to anything. Talk of vaults full of freshly printed banknotes ready to enter circulation from Athens to Zante proved false.
Yet this weekend it has emerged that Greece is choosing its own course to avoid the sorts of airport chaos that we have been witnessing at various European locations for the past week. As you may recall, since 10 April, every Schengen area frontier is supposed to be applying the EU entry-exit system in all its biometric glory to British passport holders:
- Fingerprints and facial biometric at first registration
- One of those biometrics (almost always the face) on subsequent border crossings
These rules apply to all “third-country nationals”, including Australians, Canadian and Venezuelans. But British travellers to Europe outnumber all of them put together.
I had previously warned that the queues at small Greek island airports might grow alarmingly long. On some days in summer, they can have upwards of 2,000 UK passport holders arriving and departing. The Greek border authorities, like every frontier organisation, want to get people on their way as quickly as possible. But the staffing issues are considerable.
But late on Friday, the director of the Greek national tourism organisation in the UK Eleni Skarveli, posted on LinkedIn: “When good news arrives in the midst of a crisis, its impact is even greater.”
She revealed that British passport holders are now exempt from biometric registration at Greek border crossing points – “ensuring a smoother and more efficient arrival experience in Greece”.
This unilateral move, she said, “is expected to significantly reduce waiting times and ease congestion at airports”.
The crucial aspect, in my view, is actually border processing on departure. Calamitous hold-ups at the outbound passport control at Milan Linate airport last Sunday scuppered the return home for more than 100 easyJet passengers who were booked to travel to Manchester.
So what will happen instead? Ms Skarveli told me: “Practically, this means that the entry process in place before the implementation of the EES will remain unchanged.”
In my experience, that means the frontier official taking the most cursory of glimpses at the traveller’s passport, followed by a perfunctory stamp and a polite smile. Fifteen seconds, tops, compared with five times longer for the entry-exit system.
This move has the, er, fingerprints of pragmatists all over it. The warm Greek welcome for British travellers is not just an example of xenophilia, the appreciation of foreign people; it is also an economic essential. While a northern Italian city such as Milan probably won’t notice if some UK visitors are deterred by the EES shambles, Greece wants to avoid any such problems.
Just before the EU appointment for making every Schengen area frontier 100 per cent biometric and ending “wet stamping”, Brussels conceded that some locations would not meet the entry-exit system deadline.
At the three “juxtaposed” border controls in the UK – at Dover, Folkestone and London St Pancras – the expensive EES kiosks are still not hooked up to the French police aux frontieres IT system. A week ago, I wrote: “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.”
Evidently, officials in Athens took the view: why risk cheesing off British visitors by imposing the digital borders scheme by the book, if others are not?
An end date for the Greek EES alleviation has not been mentioned, but I imagine it may stretch beyond that new EU deadline – possibly until the last taverna owner in the serene port of Naoussa on the island of Paros has shut his or her doors for winter. Greece has stolen a march on her Mediterranean rivals; expect others to follow suit.
Read more: Your EU entry-exit system questions answered
Simon Calder, also known as The Man Who Pays His Way, has been writing about travel for The Independent since 1994. In his weekly opinion column, he explores a key travel issue – and what it means for you.
