Nine EU States Delay EU Border Checks, and Puglia's Airports Breathe Out

Nine European Union countries have asked for more time to bring in the bloc's new Entry/Exit System, the Guardian reported on Monday, with France, Greece, Portugal and Italy among the governments seeking a delay at busy airports. The EES is meant to replace passport stamping for non-EU visitors with biometric registration at the border, recording fingerprints and facial images on a shared database.

The request is the latest postponement for a system that has already slipped several times. Holiday hotspots have argued that the infrastructure and staffing needed at peak-season terminals are not yet in place, and that queues would fall on travellers rather than on the agencies building the system.

For Puglia the calendar matters more than the principle. Bari and Brindisi take a large share of their foreign arrivals from the United Kingdom, the United States and the Western Balkans, and both airports handle summer traffic well above their winter baseline.

The Guardian frames the delay as a plea from busy airports rather than a rejection of the system itself. That distinction is worth keeping: none of the nine governments named in the report has said it will refuse to implement the EES, only that the timetable does not match the reality of a terminal in August.

Puglia's exposure to the change is real but modest compared with Rome, Milan or Venice. The region's international traffic is concentrated in the warm months, when charter and low-cost carriers bring British and Northern European visitors to the Salento coast and the Valle d'Itria. A biometric registration step added to that flow would land hardest exactly when the terminals are fullest.

The same wire cycle carries a second Brussels signal: the European Commission is considering a revision of Schengen short-stay visa rules and fees, according to The Local Italy, with the aim of making visa policy more coherent, secure and effective while facilitating legitimate travel. Read together, the two items point to a bloc trying to tighten its external border and smooth it at the same time.

Separately, The Local Italy reported that EU countries issued a record 3.9 million new residence permits to non-EU citizens in 2025, a rise of about 10 percent on the previous year and the highest level since records began. That figure concerns legal residence rather than tourism, but it belongs to the same story: Europe is processing more non-EU arrivals than ever, and the machinery at its borders is under strain.

For a region whose economy leans on olive oil, tourism and its ports, the practical question is staffing. Foreign coverage has not said how Italy's share of the delay would be spent, whether on new kiosks, additional border police or simply a later start. Until those details appear in the international press, the honest reading is that Puglia has bought time, not a solution.