07-03-2023
The European Union has delayed the introduction of the European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS) again again, this time until 2024, without specifying a specific day or even a month.
The EU delayed the ETIAS roll out date without notice, merely by amending the date on the EU Commission’s Migration and Home Affairs website to 2024, rather than November 2023, as previously stated, according to SchengenVisaInfo.com.
“It is projected that the European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS) will be operational in 2024,” the website says in a FAQ on the ETIAS’s implementation date.
The date of the ETIAS debut has been pushed back without prior notice to the media or the general public.
etiasvisatoeu.com contacted the EU Commission’s press staff for confirmation on the postponement of the ETIAS start date, but has yet to get a response.
The EU Commission’s Migration and Home Affairs website currently lists travel-europe.europa.eu/etias en as the official ETIAS website, as well as travel-europe.europa.eu/ees en as the official Entry/Exit System website (EES).
The latter was also meant to go into effect in May 2023, but it has been pushed out until the end of the year. The exact timing for the EES rollout is still uncertain.
SchengenVisaInfo.com contacted the eu-LISA, the EU agency responsible for the operational management of both the ETIAS and the EES IT systems, last week, asking about the possibility of the ETIAS launch date being postponed again, as well as a more precise date for the EES roll out, but has yet to receive a response in either question.
The EU established the ETIAS and EES in order to improve security in the union and keep track of who is going to arrive, who enters, and who exits EU and Schengen Area territory. Both will usher in a new era of travel to and from the bloc.
The ETIAS is likely to effect 1.4 billion individuals from over 60 different nations who now travel to the 27 Schengen Area countries without obtaining a short-stay visa, including Americans, British, Albanians, Kiwis, Canadians, and others.
The ETIAS programme was supposed to debut in 2022, however it was pushed out to the end of the same year. Then, the day when this requirement becomes required for travellers was pushed back to May 1, 2023, and the ETIAS was postponed to November 2023 without any notification or explanation.