BRUSSELS — The EU’s new biometric border-check system is causing such long delays for summer travelers that some airports are turning to a simple solution: switching it off when they’re overwhelmed by arriving travelers.

The quick fix, which is allowed under EU regulations, wasn’t what was envisioned when the Entry/Exit System was gradually introduced in October and went fully into force on April 10.

And yet, many airports are doing just that.

“When lines form during the busy summer months, the system is shut off to ensure smooth transit at our hubs in Paris and Amsterdam,” Air France-KLM told POLITICO. 

Airline CEOs, border authorities, and airport officials said biometric checks are suspended when border crossings become congested at other hubs, including in Frankfurt, Brussels and Milan.

The EES applies to non-EU citizens entering the 29-country Schengen zone. Instead of heading to a border agent to get passports stamped, passengers have to use an EES kiosk to provide their fingerprints and be photographed — which will be kept on file for three years — but if those aren’t working then the information has to be taken manually.

They then head either to electronic passport gates or to border agents to enter. The goal is to keep track of visa overstays.

“The advantages of the new system for the EU are evident,” said Guillaume Mercier, a Commission spokesperson. “It increases the security of EU citizens and replaces paper stamping with a modern system of registration and checks.”

The Commission said earlier this year that biometric checks allowed authorities to detect identity frauds that would otherwise “likely have gone undetected.”

Many airports, ports, road border crossings and rail terminals have adapted to the new demands, but tourist-heavy locations have seen hours-long waits.

“Connecting flights were missed due to the EU entry system,” Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr said on Tuesday.

Under pressure from the travel industry, the Commission granted a waiver for the peak summer season lasting until Sept. 6. The EES regulation “includes the possibility to temporarily suspend the registration of biometrics in case of exceptional circumstances during the summer,” said Mercier.

“We’ve been able to achieve this with German authorities and with Frankfurt Airport because delays were getting too long,” Spohr told reporters. 

This exception applies to all entry points, not just airports.

A British traveler, Rene Colandog, said on Friday he only had to present his passport before boarding a Eurostar train at London St. Pancras last month. Facial scans and fingerprints were not required. 

“I’m OK with this biometric system … as long as it’s for security,” Colandog said before boarding the train from Brussels back to London. 

Teething troubles

The EES was adopted in 2017, but it was delayed for years because border authorities were not ready to handle the additional workload. 

Even now, getting travelers properly registered in the new system still requires significant staffing. Another problem is that the EES is still new, so almost all travelers are registering for the first time — creating additional delays.

“At Milan Malpensa Airport, border control teams currently consist of about 35 people,” said Cristian Sternativo, a border control officer at the Italian airport and local representative of Italy’s Autonomous Police Union. 

To carry out all the checks required by the EES without creating long lines, “at least 10 to 15 more people would be needed during the busiest times,” he added.  

It is “unthinkable” to expect the EES to operate at full capacity with the current level of staffing because the new system “requires more time,” he said.

Even at Brussels Airport — barely 10 kilometers from the EU institutions — the technology is still not fully operational; biometric data collection suspensions started well before the summer under a derogation issued in late March after 600 passengers missed their flights over just 21 hours.

“The Federal Police Border Control may decide to apply this derogation when necessary,” Belgium’s police confirmed this week.

Now, eight EU countries and Switzerland want the summer derogations extended beyond Sept. 6. 

A strict application of the full procedure “would lead to public order issues” because “there are certain peak periods when the current infrastructure isn’t sufficient to accommodate everyone,” Sternativo said.

Security vs. speed

Despite suspending biometric checks, border authorities insist that security isn’t undermined.

“The traveler is always registered in the EES and the required travel document data are entered into the system,” the Belgian federal police said in a written reply, adding that “the security of border checks and compliance with European regulations remain our absolute priority.”

Passenger experiences vary depending on where they enter the EU.

Kathleen Glass, who regularly travels from the U.K. to the EU, waited only about 15 minutes to complete biometric checks at London St. Pancras on Friday morning before boarding a Eurostar train to Brussels.

William, from Edinburgh, who asked not to have his surname published, said biometric checks at a German airport during Christmas took between 40 and 50 minutes.

The ability to suspend biometric collection appears to be keeping the system functioning this summer.

“Although we are early into the summer season, we are not receiving reports of excessive queues,” said Luke Petherbridge, director of public affairs for the Association of British Travel Agents.

The stress over the EES is only a precursor to the next border technology change being planned by Brussels. The bloc’s next goal is the online European Travel Information and Authorization System, which will require travelers from 59 visa-exempt countries to preregister, undergo a security check and pay a small fee before entering Schengen.

ETIAS — similar to systems already in use in the U.K., and the U.S. — was originally supposed to launch in 2021, and then later this year, but is now delayed until 2027.

Brussels is bracing for an unusual fight between the EU’s smallest country and a British ex-footballing legend.

Peter Shilton, the England goalkeeper who conceded the “Hand of God” goal from Diego Armando Maradona in 1986, has started a new life as an anti-gambling advocate after overcoming a decades-long addiction.

Despite being a diehard Brexit supporter, he’s become the poster boy of the European Parliament’s push to tax online betting in a bid to raise some much-needed funds to finance the bloc’s next €2 trillion budget.

But the campaign has run into strong opposition from Malta. The tiny island in the Mediterranean Sea, with a population of just over half a million people, is home to a burgeoning betting sector. It says that higher taxes will cripple its gambling industry, boost illegal operators and drive firms outside the bloc.

“[Malta] will not accept the introduction of any EU-level taxes designed to sustain the bloc’s spending,” the country’s Prime Minister, Robert Abela, told the Maltese Parliament in June.

But Shilton, who lost more than £1 million in betting on horse racing over 45 years and now runs his own gambling addiction charity, dismisses the arguments by Malta and the gambling lobbies as “window dressing.” He’s in favor of higher taxes as he wants to shrink advertising revenue that is used to lure in new gamblers.

“Deep down they’re after everybody’s money. Simple as that,” he told POLITICO during a visit to Brussels in June.

The topic has split the EU’s 27 governments, pitting gambling-heavy Southern European countries against their more supportive Western European peers, led by France. Capitals are already fighting even though the Commission hasn’t yet issued a formal proposal for the possible tax, which would ultimately need to be unanimously approved by governments.

It’s one of numerous budget battle lines being drawn, with Ireland — which is steering the talks as chair of the rotating Council presidency — set to restart negotiations to facilitate an overall deal on the EU budget before the end of the year.

That’s no mean feat given Dublin’s task to mesh competing spending priorities into a single budget — financing everything from farmers’ subsidies to foreign aid — that is acceptable for each of the EU’s 27 governments.

National capitals will have to unanimously approve new EU-wide taxes — known as own resources — to pay for soaring defense spending and post-Covid debt repayments if they want to avoid drastically increasing national contributions to Brussels.

Supporters of the gambling levy point to the fact that it would rake in over €13 billion throughout the next budget cycle and — for some, more importantly — address a serious public health issue. An estimated 80 million adults globally have experienced a gambling addiction, according to experts.

“We look on it [gambling] as an illness. It’s something that’s inborn in you and that can be ignited,” Shilton said.

Malta’s game plan

Malta has invested heavily in the gambling industry — including lotteries, betting and casinos increasingly operating online — which now accounts for around 12 percent of its gross domestic product.

These firms have relocated to Malta because of its light-touch licensing regime, business-friendly tax regime and balmy weather.

The country is “as dependent on the online gambling industry as Germany is on cars,” said an EU diplomat, granted anonymity to speak freely.

While gambling firms need local authorization to operate in most other European countries, securing the Maltese license is crucial to access banking services and gain a foothold in the EU market.

Malta-based firms dominated the German and Austrian online gambling markets before national regulators cracked down. This has prompted the Maltese government to refuse to recognize some court rulings and sanctions issued by other EU countries against its gambling firms.

Given its influence, it is hardly surprising that the gambling industry has found a friendly ear among Malta’s politicians in Brussels.

The Maltese president of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, last year gave the opening speech at an international gambling conference in Rome that also featured Italian Foreign Affairs Minister Antonio Tajani.

“I’m more than a little proud that it started in my island home of Malta,” she said, referring to SiGMA, a Maltese events company that focuses on online gambling founded by Eman Pulis, a university friend of Metsola.

Betting lobbies say they oppose higher gambling rates on the grounds that they will fuel appetite for the illegal market, away from the grasp of EU rules.

“A higher tax would lead to worse odds for the customers … and it is relevant because access to the illegal markets in Europe is, obviously, one click away,” said secretary general of the European Gaming and Betting Association, Maarten Haijer.

Nicola Matteucci, an economist at the Università Politecnica delle Marche in Italy who has undertaken extensive research on the gambling sector, argued there is a “point where prices exceed a certain level and the demand [for gambling] diminishes. But it’s not as immediate as suggested by the industry.”

Matteucci said that most gamblers will be undeterred by slightly higher taxes and worse odds as they are not fully rational consumers.

Anti-gambling groups reason instead that higher taxes will reduce the sector’s spending on commercials, preventing would-be punters from getting sucked in to gambling in the first place.

“Higher taxes will therefore mean less gambling advertising overall and many people would regard that as a public benefit,” said Derek Webb, the founder of the Campaign for Fairer Gambling advocacy group.

Club Med joins Malta

Malta has joined forces with fellow Mediterranean countries — Italy, Portugal and Spain — to challenge the mooted tax which was first proposed by the Parliament’s socialist lawmaker Victor Negrescu, said four diplomats with knowledge of the discussions.

According to the European Commission’s estimates, seen by POLITICO, a 3 percent tax on the net turnover of the online gambling sector would generate an estimated €1.9 billion per year.

With its big online gambling market, Spain is expected to be among the biggest financial losers, should the tax go ahead. It is estimated to be on the hook for €414 million per year, almost a quarter of the total amount. That compares to a projected bill of €165 million per year for Malta— a disproportionality high amount for such a small country.

Portugal is also reluctant to back the levy. It fears that higher taxes would eat into revenue brought in by state-run betting and lotteries that is currently channeled to the charity Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Lisboa‘s healthcare and youth support programs, said a Portuguese official.

Meanwhile, given the relatively low uptake of online gambling, Italy’s misgivings have surprised anti-betting advocates. Rome is expected to pay a mere 7 percent of the proposed new levy — a significantly lower proportion than its regular EU budget contributions.

However, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party has previously been receptive to the gambling industry. Last year its MPs passed a resolution encouraging the reversal of a ban on professional football clubs advertising gambling firms.