Miguel A. Lopes / LUSA
Minister of Internal Administration, Maria Lúcia Amaral
Government prepares contingency plan for Portuguese airports for the Christmas period. Disturbances repeat themselves in Lisbon.
A confusion no airport of Lisbon was installed in mid-October, when the new European border control system for non-EU citizens.
Entries and exits of travelers from third countries will now be registered electronically, indicating the date, time and border post, replacing the traditional stamps in passports.
Right at the time, the Public Security Police spoke about one at Lisbon airport: passengers outside the European Union (EU) waited more than 90 minutes in the departures and arrivals area.
The days passed and the situation repeated itself. A warning has appeared about a possible flight from Humberto Delgado Airport.
Two months passed and, this Tuesday, the same or worse scenario: there were queues of more than three hours at the border control at the same airport. Some passengers waited more than six hoursaccording to .
It was a “technical difficulty” in the border control system, according to the PSP.
“Pifou”
This situation led the Government to create, at the end of October, an emergency ‘task force’ to manage this crisis situation.
Maria Lúcia Amaral, Minister of Internal Administration, was in Parliament this Tuesday.
To the deputies, the minister said that the Government is monitoring daily what is happening at Lisbon airport, where a crisis room is set up and has representatives from the PSP, SSI – Internal Security System, ANA and private entities.
However, the governor stressed that “there is unforeseen events”, have been the last few days “very striking example”.
Maria Lúcia Amaral explained that, since December 10th (last Wednesday), the second phase of the Entry/Exit System (EES) came into operation with the collection of biometric data, which consists of obtaining the passenger’s photograph and fingerprints.
According to the minister, biometric data was being operated manually by police officers at checkpoints, but since Monday it has been done using electronic kiosks, which caused disruption.
“Yesterday [segunda-feira] Together with a visit from the European Commission that disrupted this entire precarious system, control of these biometric data through kiosks began. That was enough to disturb everything”, he said, highlighting that early this morning one of the servers housed in the general secretariat of MAI “for a moment it went down”.
This failure coincided with Tuesday, the day when between 06:00 and 11:00 the largest number of flights from outside the Schengen area arrive.
Contingency plan
The Government is preparing a Contingency plan to Portuguese airports for the period of Natal, announced the Minister of Internal Administration, adding that she will take into account the disturbances recorded in recent days.
“We are dealing with and thinking about this contingency plan. We will bring it up in the coming days, taking into account the latest disturbances. It has been thought out and scheduled”, he said in parliament, in response to PS deputy Nuno Fazenda about the possibility of the Government having a contingency plan to deal with an overload at Lisbon airport.
The socialist deputy regretted that the plan is not yet ready, since “Christmas is here” and “it should already be prepared”, considering that “airport management cannot be done over the knee”
Recently the Internal Security System (SSI) admitted that the European border control system for non-EU citizens could be suspended during Christmas to avoid queues at airports, a measure that has already been authorized by the European Commission.
Asked by deputies from the Liberal, Free and Enough Initiative about whether the EES will be suspended during Christmas, the minister replied: “I don’t have a final answer on this topic. The decision doesn’t just depend on me.”
