'It won't be a shitshow'

WorldbyStorm

May 31

That's how some characterise the changes in travelling by train between the EU and Britain, with new EU changes coming into effect in the latter part of this year. But given the track record of EU/UK interactions since Brexit one would have to wonder.

Passengers will have to upload their fingerprints and scan their faces [at biometric kiosks], then walk – or queue – past the piano donated by Elton John to the ticket gates. Once they're through those, the baggage screening and UK passport control, French border police will take their fingerprints all over again.

Eurostar says its modelling shows passengers will be able to complete the process within the recommended 60 to 90 minutes before travel, though some reports last week claimed it would take two hours.

Eurostar's chief stations and security officer, Simon Lejeune, said: "We're confident 6 October won't be a shitshow because of the work that's going in … we have the right set-up."

And:

For Eurostar, the key is capacity – or how quickly passengers can pass the frontier, and it is installing 49 kiosks in three areas: the other two are for business or premier passengers and an upstairs overflow set-up for when things get hairy at peak times. The double fingerprint check is necessary because biometric data collection must be supervised by a European border officer on first entry. After registration, people will be able to use e-gates for three years. France has agreed to double the police aux frontières booths from nine to 18.

Brexit had already cut capacity on trains to Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam: the stamping of paper passports was taking so long that trains were not able to fill up and depart on time. Now, Eurostar hopes to cut the last part of the border process from 59 to 37 seconds.

Completed that journey just one in the mid-2000s from Dublin to Paris and on to Rome and back. It was fairly easy, seamless even, bar a long taxi ride across Paris to get to the train to Rome. But got to say that this level of data collection is troubling.

And what about this?

Airline passengers could find themselves on 6 October at, say, a small Greek airport which has not had millions invested in staff and kiosks to process biometric data. Passport queues for non-EU travellers may not be a pretty sight.

Was in Malaga at Easter and arriving there discovered that the immigration for UK travellers wasn't working. In the giant hall there were hundreds, perhaps more, glum looking UK passport holders waiting for something to happen. That EU passport was magic then. But the sense of all this as a self-inflicted wound on the part of the British continues to be very strong. In small ways and large Brexit continues to hobble that state.