Viana do Castelo, Portugal, May 18, 2026 (Lusa) - Portugal’s prime minister, Luís Montenegro, expressed on Monday his dissatisfaction with border control services due to long queues at airports and said that if the situation continues, he will consider suspending the collection of biometric data.
“I make no secret of the fact that we [the government] are dissatisfied with the border service response at airports, particularly at Lisbon airport."
"We will push this effort to the very limit to resolve the situation," said Luís Montenegro.
Speaking during the inauguration of the €180,000 stabilisation works on the Moledo seawall in Caminha (Northern Portugal), he assured that the government will take tougher measures if the situation requires it.
"We do not want to jeopardise security, but neither do we want to jeopardise Portugal’s economic activity," he said, adding that he had received reports from several economic operators concerned about this situation.
Border controls at Porto airport saw waiting times of over two hours, said the Public Security Police (PSP), which denied reports of six-hour waits.
In a statement released on Sunday evening, the police attributed the delays to technical and IT issues, and to the "high volume of passengers arriving from outside the Schengen Area", with around 69,000 non-Schengen passengers handled across Porto, Lisbon and Faro airports.
Montenegro assured that the government is “making a huge investment in terms of increasing staff numbers”.
“Just now, around 300 officers are graduating from a police training course specifically for roles related to border control; we are making a major investment in technology. We are complying with all the rules and obligations within our commitments in the Schengen area,” he added.
According to him, the government is moving towards centralising maintenance to streamline equipment assistance and improve technical agility.
“We are doing everything within our power to ensure we have greater response capacity,” he said.
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