Brussels, 09/10/2009 (Agence Europe) - At the end of September, EU member states took note of a preparatory report on the setting up of the future entry/exit system for automatically registering the place and date of entry and exit of third country nationals admitted into the Schengen area for short stays. Data for this report was compiled via a large-scale operation on 31 August until 6 September this year. The data gathered during the exercise focused on three different categories of traveller (EU citizens, people benefiting from free movement, third country nationals with visa waivers and those subject to visa requirements crossing land, sea and air borders). The 25 member countries of the Schengen area, as well as Cyprus, Bulgaria and Romania took part in this exercise (the two latter countries were the subject of a separate statistical exercise). The total number of exits registered in a week was 12,907,581. Out of this number, 9,312,665 were EU citizens or people benefiting from free movement, 2,130,256 were third country nationals with visa waivers and 1,464,660 were third country nationals with visas. The number of entries and exists calculated at the different borders was 1,101,677 (sea), 5,035,709 (land) and 6,770,195 (air). Countries that registered the most entries and exits in all the different categories were Spain (3,229,490), followed by France (1,841,413) and Bulgaria (1,414,238). The countries having the lowest transit number of travellers at their borders were Luxembourg (8,627) and Iceland (15,787). These figures are expected to enable the European Commission to calculate the scale of the database registering Schengen area entries and exits. This exercise also aims to prepare the presentation under the future Bulgarian Presidency (second half of 2010), of a legislative proposal in this area. Setting up this system is planned to coincide with the launch of the Visa Information System (VIS) based on data gathered last year. The main added value of a European entry/exit registration system is to fight against visa over-stays, the main cause of illegal immigration in the EU. (B.C./transl.rh)