{"id":16626,"date":"2026-05-04T09:56:43","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T09:56:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/16626\/"},"modified":"2026-05-04T09:56:43","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T09:56:43","slug":"spain-holds-firm-despite-airport-queues-while-portugal-and-italy-follow-greece-easing-ees-border-controls-for-britons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/16626\/","title":{"rendered":"Spain holds firm despite airport queues while Portugal and Italy follow Greece easing EES border controls for Britons"},"content":{"rendered":"

The new entry\/exit border controls<\/a> across Spain<\/a> and Europe are continuing to cause chaos. A Sky News presenter left slip on Sunday that her sister had flown to Palma for the Bank Holiday weekend and had to queue for over two hours to get through border control at the airport.<\/p>\n

The new EES<\/a> European Entry\/Exit System, which became operational on April 10 following a testing period, is said to be causing delays of up to three hours at Palma Airport<\/a> for non-EU travellers and British passengers are facing similar problems at airports across Spain.<\/p>\n

ABTA says passengers\u2019 experience of EES has been mixed, with some people having no issues at all whereas others have experienced queues or technical problems. ABTA says that as well as applying the contingency measures, destinations and border authorities need to do more to plan for peak travel periods. This should include the use of additional border guards at the busiest times. Mark Tanzer, Chief Executive of ABTA \u2013 The Travel Association said: \u201cThe ambition of a project like EES means it was never going to go completely smoothly, and we were prepared for that.<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, what is frustrating is that border authorities have it within their power to ease queues and deal with issues as they arise \u2013 but that doesn\u2019t seem to be happening across the board. As the rollout expands and we head towards peak travel periods, we\u2019re urging border authorities to plan for busy periods and use the contingency measure available. It\u2019s critical the European Commission keeps a close eye on this throughout the rollout and beyond.\u201d<\/p>\n

Greece has opted to suspend EU fingerprint and facial scans for British holidaymakers this summer, abandoning the new biometric security measures amid concerns over widespread queuing chaos across the continent. Delays of up to four hours have been reported at numerous destinations, including Greece itself. And now Portugal and Italy have followed Greece in ditching new EU border checks, and Spain could be next. Portugal is now waving passengers through gates when queues get too big.<\/p>\n

The Daily Mail now reports that France, Croatia, and Spain could follow. Seamus McCauley, of travel company Holiday Extras, said: \u201cCountries are not going to sit back and let Greece take their trade because they won\u2019t face EES delays at airports. To do so would be politically toxic as jobs are on the line. The rollout has been an utter fiasco. British tourists<\/a> are worth \u20ac3.5billion a year to the Greek economy and it has rightly decided it will not jeopardise that because EES is not working properly.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The new entry\/exit border controls across Spain and Europe are continuing to cause chaos. A Sky News presenter…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16627,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[6943,2000,6944,1391,8625,6942,333,605,599,600,1393,17],"class_list":{"0":"post-16626","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-spain","8":"tag-airport-queues","9":"tag-border-controls","10":"tag-british-passports","11":"tag-british-tourists","12":"tag-ees","13":"tag-eu-entry-exit-system","14":"tag-european-union","15":"tag-latest-headlines","16":"tag-majorca","17":"tag-mallorca","18":"tag-palma-airport","19":"tag-spain"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16626\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}