Luxembourg, June 4, 2026 (Lusa) - Portugal's government said on Thursday it was optimistic about a smooth summer at Portugal’s airport borders, given the increase in staff and technical resources to implement the new European Union (EU) Entry/Exit System.
“More booths, more ‘e-gates’, more staff, more training, more physical space – all of this is in line with the government’s desire to play our part in fulfilling our EU obligation [to implement the EES system] and, therefore, we are optimistic,” said the minister for internal affairs, Luís Neves.
Speaking to the Lusa news agency at the start of the Justice and Internal Affairs Council in Luxembourg, the minister pointed out that "there will always be technical issues which are still being ironed out", attributing the long queues, however, to "the works that were being carried out" given that this involves "a reconfiguration of the airports" to adopt the EES, created under the new European migration pact.
“We will also be working on signage so that passengers are aware […] and we are working – on supporting those who, whilst not police officers, will assist passengers in directing them to the area where they need to proceed, and therefore, setting aside the technological issues, where we are detecting some flaws and are in the process of correcting them, […] we view this operation regarding security and airport border control with a much more optimistic outlook than we did 15 days ago, or a month, or two months ago”, he emphasised.
In this statement to Lusa, alongside the European Commissioner for Internal Affairs, Magnus Brunner, Luís Neves said he hoped there would be “no chaos” at Portuguese airports this summer, given the increased pressure from the implementation of the EES and the greater influx of tourists.
"There may be – and this week there was a bit of chaos at the airport because of a mistake not attributable to the state service, where 300-odd passengers were dropped off where they shouldn’t have been – so, this is a whole operation that has to be carried out afterwards, and so there is always another issue that is bound to arise, but we are much more confident and optimistic compared to the recent past,” the minister stressed.
“Our commitment […] is, above all, to ensure that we have more staff, better preparation, more resources and more physical space,” Luís Neves added.
Data from the European Commission sent to Lusa showed that, in most Member States, the processing of first-time registrations takes, on average, just over a minute.
Since October 2025, when the system came into force, almost 90 million entries and exits have been recorded, along with over 40,000 refusals of entry due to false or fraudulent documents, of which more than 800 people were identified as posing a threat to EU security.
The EES is a digital system for electronically recording the entry and exit of third-country nationals into the Schengen area, replacing manual stamps with biometric and digital records.
It is envisaged that, in the event of technical failures in the system, Member States may temporarily resort to alternative procedures, including manual registration and passport stamps, until normal operations are restored.
In recent months, there have been long queues at Lisbon, Porto and Faro airports.
ANE/ADB // ADB.
Lusa
