Chaos feared at Dover port over EU's entry/exit system

Cross-Channel ferry passengers and the port of Dover face “utter chaos and miles of tailbacks” under the EU’s entry/exit system (EES) unless the technology is fixed or checks are suspended by next week, MPs have said.

The home affairs select committee chair, Karen Bradley, urged the government to “apply maximum pressure” on the French authorities to act on the EES before peak holiday traffic arrives at the port.

A minister said UK officials were pressing France to “prioritise flow” during the peak summer holiday period.

Dover normally experiences its busiest weekend by the time most schools have officially broken up for summer, so it expects traffic to peak from Friday 17 July.

The port said EES checks at the start of the May half-term holiday led to four and a half hours of delays, and it expects almost 50% more vehicles to travel through Dover this summer.

The warning came after the EU on Tuesday rejected calls by airports and airlines around Europe to suspend EES’s fingerprinting and facial recognition border controls, despite admitting to “20 difficult spots” where the system was causing tailbacks.

EU officials said only 20 of 1,500 border crossing points were “difficult spots”.

The committee of MPs visited Dover last week to see where the port had changed its layout using land reclaimed from the sea and installed 84 automatic kiosks for EES – designed to speed through traffic but which cannot now be used because of problems with the technology supplied by France.

Bradley said: “We saw for ourselves that there is going to be utter chaos next week unless the French authorities step up. And the people who will suffer are British holidaymakers and firms attempting to transport goods.

“The western docks currently serve as a processing centre for coach passengers undergoing the EU’s entry/exit system. But the £40m biometric kiosk facility meant for car travellers remains closed due to technology and software delays from French authorities.

“The Home Office must apply maximum pressure right now to either get this up and running or suspend the checks, otherwise there will be miles of tailbacks.”

The Home Office minister Alex Norris told MPs on Wednesday that the government would “push very heavily” for the movement of people to be given precedence at EU borders. “When you get to peak volume … the volumes that are coming shortly, it fundamentally comes down to a question of a prioritisation of flow or prioritisation of compliance with the scheme itself,” he said.

“We push very heavily, we will do every day between now and then … to make sure that the French use flexibilities available to prioritise flow.”

Pressed on whether he would support a full suspension of the EES, he later said: “I would not set that as the goal and the aspiration, because I don’t believe that’s deliverable.”

The shadow Home Office minister Matt Vickers lamented the “delusional attitude among EU colleagues” that the “EES is working just fine”. Reiterating his call for the scheme to be halted during the peak holiday season, the Conservative MP said: “The government must stand behind the interests of British travellers.”

The port’s chief executive, Doug Bannister, last week wrote to the business and trade committee to warn of the impact on local towns as well as transport, freight and trade if EES problems were not resolved. He said Dover could not use its facility because of “the inoperability of the EES kiosk technology, which is completely beyond the control of the port”.

He said: “Without greater flexibility in how EES is operated during periods of exceptional demand, we will face repeated episodes of severe congestion throughout the summer holiday period.”

Bannister said traffic modelling showed “queueing cars spilling out of the port on to the public highway for miles. This simply cannot be allowed to happen, as both Dover and Folkestone will be severely affected.”

EES was launched last October after years of delays, with the ability for border police to temporarily suspend the system if deemed necessary to process all travellers – a discretionary power that will only last until September.