U.K. and other non-EU travelers must buckle up for ‘excessive queue times’ under new EU system

Tourists and businesspeople entering from non-EU countries, including the UK, will be required to register details such as their fingerprints and photograph at the border when the bloc brings in its new system later this year. The rollout is expected to cause longer queues at airports, ports and the Eurostar rail line, and EU diplomats believe it will pose an early test of the UK-EU relationship under Labour.

The Home Office will increase the presence of French border officials at the Port of Dover to reduce the risk of delays and will work with the French government to amend its border control arrangements and streamline checks, the government said in a statement Monday. The newly elected Labour government says the previous administration didn’t do enough to prepare for the new system. 

The “checks will be a major change to the EU border so the public should prepare for some queues during peak times when they are first introduced,” said Seema Malhotra, minister for immigration and citizenship. “We have been reviewing the preparations that have been made so far and…previous Home Office ministers have simply not done enough to mitigate the impact. We are now working swiftly to minimize the risk of excessive queue times as much as possible.” 

The system is designed to automate registration of non-EU nationals traveling to the bloc for short stays and is meant to reduce delays in the longer term, with border guards no longer having to manually check and stamp passports. The Port of Dover will have 24 kiosks for passengers to complete the new checks, while Eurostar will have almost 50 desks and the Eurotunnel will have more than 100, the government said. It estimates the new system will add just over five minutes to journey times.