On Monday 23 February, the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties held an exchange of views on the gradual deployment of the Entry/Exit System (EES), revealing a mixed operational record.
Henrik Nielsen, Deputy Director-General for the Schengen area and visa policy at the European Commission, confirmed that the system had entered its third phase, with Member States obliged to register “at least 35% of all border crossings”. By mid-February, around 17 million passenger files had already been registered.
Tillmann Keber, Executive Director of the European Agency for the Operational Management of Large-scale IT Systems, described the launch on 12 October 2025 as a “big success”, saying that the EES is now “fully stabilised”.
However, MEPs voiced serious concerns about the adequacy of the existing infrastructure to meet the needs of such an ambitious system. Fabienne Keller (Renew Europe, French) expressed her concern about the technical incidents mentioned, in particular the “memory saturation” of the central system, questioning the reliability of the information transfer chain at a time when other projects, such as Eurodac, are coming on stream. She was followed by Jan-Christoph Oetjen (Renew Europe, German), who drew attention to the potential “technical bottlenecks” when Member States will be responsible for all registrations.
Birgit Sippel (S&D, German) and Assita Kanko (ECR, Belgian) questioned the Commission on “excessive waiting times”, already deplored by European airports (see EUROPE 13805/20). The two MEPs also raised the sensitive issue of exchanges of biometric data with third countries, insisting on travellers’ right to information about the purpose of the data processing.
Lena Düpont (EPP, German) said she was “amazed” that some Member States were still not ready despite the preparation period, since, according to Mr Nielsen, three countries were still facing “technical issues at national level”.
In response, Mr Keber said that technical corrections had already been successfully implemented. For his part, Mr Nielsen assured that additional flexibility would be maintained, allowing Member States to temporarily suspend the collection of biometric data until the summer in order to smooth out traffic peaks.
The Commission is maintaining its target of full deployment on 10 April 2026, when the stamping of passports should cease. (Original version in French by Justine Manaud)