Peterthegreat
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They are. It clearly says so.
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Eurostar passport control update
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I passed through Helsinki Airport the other week where they had rows of kiosks before their egates, which I presume are set up waiting to be turned on for the new EU entry system. Not sure how you’d fit kiosks like that at St Pancras though! Of course, I was directed for my customary post-Brexit chat with a border officer with the added addition of a stamp counting exercise this time although I think he was rather bored as it was quiet.
Unsurprisingly I can't read French. People have posted in the thread that Brits can't use E Gates at St Pancras.
I haven't had any problems since end of transition period visiting Portugal and Spain. I have the impression that the border staff really can't be bothered asking British Citizens more than the bare minimum and stamping.
Google Chrome will auto-translate if you right click on the webpage. It's not perfect but it does for casual reading:
I've had the same experience going to typical holiday places in France, Spain and Greece but in the Nordic Countries they have wanted to know more about my visit post-Brexit. All perfectly polite interactions though and they seem very happy to welcome British people for a holiday there, certainly nothing like the 'welcome' I've had entering the US before. I imagine those countries may not allow UK passports through e-gates in the future even after the new system is introduced.
Again, I can personally confirm that when I personally went through St Pancras this weekend just gone, I was personally informed by multiple staff members, and signage, that the e-gates were for EU passport holders only. Any website saying otherwise is wrong.
I flew to Wroclaw a couple of months ago, got to the front of the queue for the e-gates, then got told I had to go through a manual gate. Fortunately I didn't have to go to the back of the queue again and just went straight to the first available desk.
I then spent the next 10 days travelling around Poland and Czech Republic by train.
I flew out of Prague where I had a slight problem at border control - my passport hadn't been stamped on arrival at Wroclaw! Fortunately I had kept my boarding card for the flight to Wroclaw, and after a few minutes the guy eventually stamped me out.
But I wonder how many other peoples passports hadn't been stamped on arrival at Wroclaw!
I then spent the next 10 days travelling around Poland and Czech Republic by train.
I flew out of Prague where I had a slight problem at border control - my passport hadn't been stamped on arrival at Wroclaw! Fortunately I had kept my boarding card for the flight to Wroclaw, and after a few minutes the guy eventually stamped me out.
But I wonder how many other peoples passports hadn't been stamped on arrival at Wroclaw!
Peterthegreat
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And I can personally confirmed I went through the e-gates in July.
kevin_roche
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I have been to Spain twice since Brexit and used the E-Gates both times. No stamp in my passport. I am wondering what would have happened if I drove to France and tried to fly home from there.
I suspect there would be a digital marker from the E-gate scan that would pop up on the French PAF officer's display. If not, they would probably ask you to demonstrate where and when you entered the EU/Schengen zone.
Different Schengen countries' systems don't talk to one another very well, so there would possibly not have been anything "pop up" (this is what the Entry Exit System is meant to fix).
Indeed, in which case there'd be a delay whilst the PAF interviewed the passenger to establish where and when they entered the EU and then called their Spanish counterparts to verify the passport entry record.
It'll be moderately interesting to see what happens in a couple of weeks, when I get the Eurostar back to London from Brussels, as I entered the EU at Dieppe in France. However I'll be travelling on dual UK/EU passports so I suspect nothing unexpected will happen.
I had the joy of travelling through Brussels to London yesterday and it was a complete mess. Belgian passport control was extremely slow, and all departures seemed to be about 20 minutes late to let all passengers get through. They didn't start letting passengers in until the previous train had left (also 20 minutes late), and so the departure lounge was completely empty, as by the time anyone had made it through all the checks the train was already boarding.
I also had forgotten how much worse the ride quality on the 374s is compared to the 373s, there seemed to be quite a lot of vibration all the way (coffee cups vibrating their way off the tray tables), as well as a lot of yaw oscillations. No match to the buttery smoothness of their predecessors.
I also had forgotten how much worse the ride quality on the 374s is compared to the 373s, there seemed to be quite a lot of vibration all the way (coffee cups vibrating their way off the tray tables), as well as a lot of yaw oscillations. No match to the buttery smoothness of their predecessors.
Travelling on 2 passports, 1 UK and 1 EU.
When I travelled back from Brussels it was an even bigger mess at Midi and my train left 70 minutes late. The excuse they gave over the PA before we had even boarded the train was "there are more passengers to process because we didn't know that the train was going to be fully booked"!
D6130
Established Member
Astonishing! As most - if not all - passengers would have been pre-booked, you could have been forgiven for thinking that they would have that information to hand. Sounds to me like a feeble excuse for sloppy working. However, if they were having problems due to a shortage of staff, they could have just told you so.
I'm surprised as I've found Polish airports to be quite keen on stamps.
I found myself stood at Gdansk for a good five minutes while the officer sat with a calculator and counted up how many days I'd been in the Schengen area. Unlike Budapest who blindly stamped a random page already full of stamps a couple of weeks ago. Can't wait for the potential grief tomorrow when I fly to Poland and they can't find that exit stamp.
More on-topic, I've actually had issues with St Pancras also being rather careless - I had to collar an officer last month after her colleague gave me half a stamp without a date on. Not much use to anyone.
D6130
Established Member
....if the various constituent countries manage to get their act together and decide which system to use and when it can be introduced!
I used the St Pancras e-gates in the Carte Blanche queue in October. We were initially in the manual queue and were pulled out with a few others to go and use the e-gates due to congestion, so they evidently can make a conscious decision to allow UK passport holders to use them.
It’s quite funny because as soon as I started getting stamps from the EU, loads of other countries stopped doing them. Didn’t get any in the USA when I travelled earlier in the year. It’s a shame really.
Depends what you mean by odd... Given Irish citizens have the right to live and work in the UK which EEA/Swiss citizship generally does not grant, treating Irish citizens "differently" is a central tenet of the current system.
Indeed, Irish citizens are now the only people in the world who have the automatic right to live in the UK and also the EEA and Switzerland without papers.
It's a good idea to turn up at a border knowing already how many days you've stayed inside the Schengen area in the past year or so. For someone who has entered and exited frequently it's a good idea to keep a log yourself and update it every time you're about to cross the external border.
This doesn't mean that they won't check your working obviously, but if you're asked and you just say I don't know it's not a good look.
As you have suggested already it's also a good idea to ask for your stamps for the time being if they're illegible or forgotten.
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Those rights are what I meant were odd, not British and Irish citizens needing to use same queue even after UK ETA launches because that will just be the natural result of CTA rights. The obvious divsion will be British + Irish, ETA and rest of world. Current divison essentially has the first two groups together but is unlikely to work once people have ETA hoops to jump through. FOM between UK and Ireland is necessary now because of Northern Ireland but in the event of a United Ireland if CTA continues it will be extremely odd. I can't imagine a formal alliance of any kind between Britain and Ireland in our life times but their citizens would continue to have more rights in UK than those of our NATO allies etc. At the same time GB born British Citizens or their children are 350,000 out of 4.5 million population of republic of Ireland (and proportionately growing). Its worth noting that the CTA goes much further than Trans Tasmin agreement. For instance Kiwis don't have right to most social security in Australia if using the agreement, they can't vote in the other country and criminals are deported from both countries (its often a life time entry ban too).
LNW-GW Joint
Veteran Member
Croatia joins Schengen on 1 Jan 2023 (and adopts the Euro).
I think land/sea borders apply immediately, but airports not till March.
So no Schengen checks at Dobova on the SI/HR trains from next month.
Romania and Bulgaria entry to Schengen was deferred, maybe only by a year or so, thanks to objections by Austria and the Netherlands.
The decision is reassuring in terms of Schengen's Eurostar and Euroshuttle border with us.
My understanding is that the Croatia should have been agreed months ago but kept getting deferred in hope that agreement could be found on all three candidate countries. Its an astounding late decision, giving them just 3 weeks to finish preparations!
Bulgaria frankly deserves to be rejected after the scandal of having organised crime basically control an EU external border crossing with Turkey. I know the smuggling was of goods not people but its unsurprising that not all members trust the EUs recommendation yet. Romania seems to have been a victim of overcaution and can hopefully join next year.
Sound advice. Have a note on my phone now with all entry/exits in 2022 and the total for the past six months. Soon adds up!
I've had worse. Had quite a heated argument with a border control officer at Dobova (on the Wien-Zagreb train) who simply looked at the first stamp in my passport and decided I'd been in the Schengen area for three months continuously.
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Just passed through St Pancras and it looks like they're doing a - relatively unadvertised - trial of allowing UK passport holders to use the French e-gates. They've got a set cordoned off from the rest with signage inviting UK (and select other non-EU) passport holders to use them, and a French officer in a booth behind them doing the stamping.
Is it any faster? In my experience the French officers at St Pancras have never asked any questions to the "select other nationalities" (assume the usual i.e. US, Australia, Japan etc) and just scan and stamp so it's quite fast - until someone from a developing country who has had to get a Schengen visa turns up.
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