Nine EU States Delay New Border Checks, and Italy's Airports Breathe

Nine European Union countries have secured another postponement of the bloc's new biometric border regime, the Guardian reported on Monday, with France, Greece, Portugal and Italy among the states pleading for more time to install the Entry/Exit System at busy airports. The EES is meant to register non-EU visitors' fingerprints and facial images at the point of entry, replacing passport stamping, but its rollout has slipped repeatedly since it was first scheduled.

The delay matters most where arrivals are concentrated in a few hours of the day. Venice's Marco Polo airport is a seasonal machine, and the Guardian's account of crowded terminals and unfinished equipment describes precisely the condition that has kept the system on hold.

According to the Guardian, the countries asked for breathing room during their busiest periods rather than a permanent exemption. The paper frames the request as logistical, not political: governments say they support the system but cannot yet process travellers through it without queues that spill onto the apron.