The Council of the European Union has established a general approach on a regulation that would enable member states to gradually introduce the Entry/Exit digital border management system (EES) over a period of six months.
The EES will collect passenger biometric data and digitally record entries and exits, data from the passport, fingerprints and facial images of non-EU nationals traveling for short stays in an EU member state.
In October 2023, the Justice and Home Affairs Council endorsed plans to launch the EES at the end of 2024. As this deadline could not be met – and because of concerns that a full start of the system could constitute a risk to the resilience of the IT system – the European Commission proposed a gradual start.
Because the EES regulation requires all member states to start using the EES fully and simultaneously, a new regulation was necessary to make a progressive start possible.
Under the phased deployment, member states will progressively start operating the EES and work toward a minimum registration of 10% of border crossings after the first month. For the first 60 days, member states may operate the EES without biometric functionalities. After three months, member states should operate the EES – with biometric functionalities – at a minimum of half of their border crossing points. The council said in a statement that EU countries should reach full registration of all individuals by the end of the period of the progressive start of EES operation. Until the end of this transition period, member states will also continue to manually stamp travel documents.
The regulation does not set a date for the start of the progressive deployment of the system. This will require a separate European Commission decision once the law has entered into force.
This general approach is the basis for negotiations with the European Parliament, which is still in the process of agreeing on its position. The two co-legislators need to find a common position in order to formally adopt the law.
Read more about delays to EES implementation here.