Portugal notifies temporary suspensions of EES

The European Commission confirms that Portugal will resort to suspending the registration of biometric data when necessary to avoid queues at airports. The notification has already been made to Brussels.

By Bruno G. Santos, in News · 29 May 2026, 14:03 · 3 Comments

Credits: Unsplash; Author: Daniel Schludi;

The European Commission confirms that Portugal will temporarily suspend the collection of biometric data whenever justified.

According to SIC Noticias, Brussels states that Portugal "is notifying suspensions of biometric registration as needed." Indicating that the suspensions will occur whenever justified, namely during peak times, to avoid queues at national airports.

Notifying the European Commission

According to the same media outlet, all Member States must notify Brussels whenever they wish to partially suspend the EES, specifying not only the border crossing point but also the duration of the suspension, which may be up to 6 hours and may be renewed.

More in News

The Viseu Dão Lafões region is distributing glasses for safe solar eclipse in Portugal viewing

In News - 26 Jul 2026, 18:03

Portugal may have a new metropolitan area in Minho

In News - 26 Jul 2026, 15:03

Portugal to enhance archaeological site in Aveiro district

In News - 26 Jul 2026, 13:03

Comments

About time. This is just another large EU failed project. The contractors have done very nicely out of this ( and those that have awarded them allegedly). Over budget, late, under scoped and totally ineffective. It's received more bad press this week when a US CNN journalist missed her flight due to EES. Greece has already suspended it's EES indefinitely for fear of loss of tourism money which like Portugal is heavily dependent on. It's going to be interesting what criteria Portugal will use to suspend it's usage.

By David Clark from UK on 30 May 2026, 04:42

I passed through this region on my way in early April, Lisbon first, with arrival early morning as I fully expected Queues.
In practice, these were small, but what WAS evident that all the shiny new machines had never actually been tested for functionality, so I hadto perform all the dance at a manual Kiosk.
When I left, going through Poland, on the train, the guy had a somewhat bulky thing strapped to him, that did at least work.
I Used to work in financial systems as a systems analyst.
My question is this. WHY, Is testing now considered unfashionable or unnecessary.
The work to get it right is FAR less than the chaos of wrong. This summer proves my point.

By Cecil Gorwyn from Other on 30 May 2026, 08:59

A few years ago, the Canadian federal government upgraded its pay system. In typical fashion, it quickly got into cost overrun, failing to meet specs, and the usual issues. The ultimate solution for a timely deployment was to forego testing. Unsurprisingly, almost 10 years later, a substantial number of employees are still encountering serious issues with their pay: some get too much, some do not get enough. Ultimately, some high ranking officials. have been moved out of harm's way: read here 'promotions'.

By JC Audet from Beiras on 31 May 2026, 13:17