Simon Calder, also known as The Man Who Pays, has been writing about travel for The Independent since 1994. In his weekly column, he explores a key question about travel – and what it means to you.
St. George’s Day brought a tweet from Lord Frost, which will surely delight the heart of every English traveler (as well as those from Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland).
You may remember that his lordship negotiated the Brexit deal, which made British citizens “third-country nationals” subject to all restrictions on travel to the European Union.
In his social media post, Lord Frost welcomed what he called “a very welcome and sensible decision by Portugal to allow UK travelers to use electronic ports”.
Lord Frost includes a link to an article in the Daily Telegraph entitled: “Portugal to treat British passengers as EU citizens at the border in order to reduce queues at airports”.
(Some people may make a double assessment of what appears to be a gesture of national sovereignty of the kind that led us was impossible under Brussels’ domination, but let’s read on.)
“Portugal has broken its ranks to become the first EU country to oppose Brexit by treating British holidaymakers on its borders in the same way as EU citizens.
Apparently then fools like me, who had warned of a drastic increase in trouble when they headed to post-Brexit Europe, were wrong. You, me and Lord Frost can obviously now fly to Portugal happily, knowing that we will not be detained for passport control and a moment longer than when the United Kingdom was part of the EU.
“The Portuguese government has opened its electronic doors to British passengers, allowing them to be tracked quickly and seamlessly without having to queue for hours for manual checks, as required before Brexit,” we are told.
Only if that was true.
Third-country nationals arriving in the Schengen area must be stamped, individually and manually, by border guards. At present, this is the only way for border guards to assess whether British visitors have stayed more than 90 days in the 180 in the EU – one of the rules that the United Kingdom has introduced.
Two weeks ago, my slow British Airways flight to Milan arrived just behind the Airbus A380, carrying many hundreds of passengers from Dubai. I waited in line for more than an hour while EU citizens passed in seconds.
As countries like Cyprus have already done, the Lisbon authorities seem to have made an operational decision to ease the queues by automating one part of the process – matching the person and the document – before an official stamps the passport.
But they cannot make a political decision to treat “British holidaymakers in the same way as EU citizens across its borders”. There remains the need to stamp and exit.
Yes, this is an absurdly analogous procedure and should be replaced – probably later this year – by the EU’s Automated Entry / Exit System (EES). But for now, British arrivals, unlike European Union citizens, have to present their passports for human processing.
Lord Frost added in his tweet: “It is worth noting, perhaps, that we already allow all EU travelers to use our electronic ports when arriving in the UK.
Membership in the European Union offers many advantages. Don’t take my word for it; before the referendum in 2016, the still disapproved Mr Frost said: “It is in the UK’s national interest to remain part of the EU.
“I don’t think we need to get out of this.”
Given the tangle of bureaucracy and the reduced opportunities provided by the exit vote and the subsequent withdrawal agreement, I think many British travelers will agree.
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