Travel fears over ‘big bang’ launch of EU border system in autumn 2024

Ryanair has warned that the EU’s much-delayed Entry/Exit System (EES) is not yet fit for testing – even though the European Commission has vowed to launch the “smart borders” project at a single moment next year. The Independent has studied the evidence provided by Europe’s biggest budget airline to the UK parliament’s European scrutiny committee. It backs up concerns expressed privately by senior travel industry figures about the risks involved in imposing the Entry/Exit System at a single moment. But Brussels insists the pan-European linkage of all frontiers to a central database will happen on a big-bang basis. Officials in Brussels have confirmed to The Independent that “no ‘soft launch’ is foreseen” for the new system. In its evidence, Ryanair laments the lack of information provided and ability to develop systems that will work on day one. The airline says: “It is not yet possible to properly test changes to our systems due to delays in providing test environments and many aspects of the system requirements either have not been specified or are simply not clear to us. “This makes meeting the requirements very difficult, regardless of the repeated delays in the implementation date. Overall, this whole project has been delayed multiple times and has been poorly managed.” Ryanair says the implementation date has “been postponed on three occasions due to the complexity of the programmes and the lack of readiness of border authorities across the EU”. But the EC believes all the member states will be ready by the end of July 2024, with the Europe-wide launch in the autumn.<br/>