Burnham Urged to Ask EU Leaders to Pause New Border Checks

About 2.2 million British holidaymakers are expected to travel abroad between Friday and Monday, with most heading to Europe. It is one of the busiest travel weekends of the year, since all schools in the UK are now on summer break. But a new EU border system is causing long waits at airports and ports, and some travelers have even missed their flights. Now, politicians are calling on Prime Minister Andy Burnham to step in and ask European leaders to pause the system.

The new system is called the Entry-Exit System, or EES. It requires people who are not from the EU — including British citizens — to register when they arrive in Europe. They must also be photographed and have their fingerprints taken. The EES has been officially in use since April, though border police have been allowed to ease the rules when lines get very long. Even so, some travelers have waited several hours to get through passport control.

Liberal Democrat politician Calum Miller spoke at Heathrow Airport on Friday morning about the problem. He called the EES a "bungled, malfunctioning border system" and said it needed to be suspended until at least September. Miller argued that neither holidaymakers nor truck drivers should suffer because of a system that is "completely out of their control." He urged Burnham to personally call every European leader and push them to pause the EES together.

Miller also blamed Brexit for making the situation worse. He said that the UK's departure from the EU is "now putting millions of Britons at risk of having their holidays ruined." Before Brexit, British travelers could move freely through EU borders without extra checks. Now they are treated the same as other non-EU visitors, which means more steps at border control.

The travel group Abta said Spain is the most popular destination for British travelers this weekend. Greece, Portugal, Italy, and Turkey are also in high demand. Abta's chief executive, Mark Tanzer, urged passengers to leave plenty of extra time for their journeys, especially if they have not traveled through EU border control since the new system began.

Some countries are handling the EES differently. Greece has said it will not carry out the extra biometric checks on UK visitors, who make up most of its non-EU tourists. In France, technical problems mean the automatic border booths are not working properly. French border police have also decided not to fingerprint or photograph people traveling by car at ferry ports or through the Eurotunnel, which has helped traffic move more smoothly so far.

The port of Dover said Friday and Saturday would be its busiest days of the summer. It expected just over 10,000 cars on top of regular truck traffic. Despite the large numbers, wait times had not gone over 40 minutes and were sometimes as short as 10 minutes. The French border checks for cross-Channel travelers actually take place on the UK side, which raised fears of big backups, but those have not yet happened.

Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander has been working on the issue too. She has met with EU officials and spoken with her French counterpart multiple times, including a conversation last week. A government spokesperson said the UK is doing "everything we can to get people away on their summer holidays with as little hassle as possible." That includes spending money to improve EES facilities and manage traffic at Dover.

Airline easyJet added its voice to the calls for action on Thursday. The airline urged the EU to extend the flexibility around EES rules until the end of October. Return flights back to the UK are seen as the biggest concern, since British travelers returning from Europe also have to go through the new checks. Officials and airlines alike are hoping EU leaders will act quickly to reduce delays before the summer travel season gets even busier.