Europe's ETIAS rollout postponed to 2024

Source: Schengen Visa Info

The European Union has once again postponed the launch of the European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS), this time for the year 2024, without giving an exact date, or even month.

The delay of the ETIAS rollout date has happened without any warning by the EU, by simply, changing the date in the EU Commission’s Migration and Home Affairs website to 2024, instead of November 2023, as it has been before, SchengenVisaInfo.com reports.

“It is expected that the European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS) will be operational in 2024,” the website reads, under a FAQ regarding the date of the ETIAS entry into force.

The postponement of the date of the ETIAS launch has been made without any prior announcement for the media or the public.

SchegnenVisaInfo.com has contacted the press team of the EU Commission asking for a confirmation on the postponement of the ETIAS launch date but has received no response so far.

The EU Commission’s Migration and Home Affairs website now also lists travel-europe.europa.eu/etias_en as the official ETIAS website, and travel-europe.europa.eu/ees_en as the official website of the Entry/Exit System, (EES).

The latter was also supposed to become effective on May 2023, but it has been postponed until the end of the year. The exact date for the EES rollout remains unknown as well.

Last week, SchegnenVisaInfo.com contacted the eu-LISA, which is the EU agency responsible for the operational management of the IT systems of both the ETIAS and the EES, asking about the possibility of the ETIAS launch date to be postponed again, and a more exact date of the EES rollout, but has not received a response in either question yet.

Both the ETIAS and EES have been created by the EU in a bid to enhance security in the bloc, and keep track of who is planning to come, who enters, and who leaves the EU and Schengen Area territory. Both of them will make a revolution in travel to and from the bloc.

It is expected that the ETIAS will affect 1.4 billion people from over 60 different countries, who currently travel to the 27 Schengen Area countries without having to obtain a short-stay visa, including Americans, Britons, Albanians, Kiwis, Canadians, etc.

The ETIAS scheme was first set to launch in 2022 and then was postponed to the end of the same year. Later on, the date this requirement becomes mandatory for travelers was moved to May 1, 2023, and without any notice or reasons behind such a move, the ETIAS was postponed to November 2023.