Overview
- Greece’s tourism minister said British holidaymakers will not be put through new Entry/Exit System biometrics this summer and promised airport processing in under a couple of minutes.
- Athens described the move as a facilitation of procedures rather than a formal legal exemption, and the European Commission is in contact with Greece to clarify the approach.
- Travel journalist Simon Calder reported continued hold-ups in other countries, citing accounts of hour‑long queues in Lisbon and full fingerprinting and photographing on both arrivals and departures in Frankfurt.
- Portugal reverted to manual passport checks at Lisbon, Porto and Faro, while Italy said it would not suspend digital checks for British travelers.
- The EES replaces passport stamps with a first‑time photo and fingerprint scan for non‑EU visitors, and early rollout problems have led to long queues and missed flights at some airports, heightening concerns in Greece where nearly five million Britons visited last year.