More chaos and confusion then.
Or is it UK tit for tat?
Doubt it, the UK is a third world country now and previous tourist rules do not apply any longer. No different than going to the US or Australia I would think whereby you need paperwork. Gone are the days now when brits could just keep popping back and forth to the EU for as long as they liked and do more or less what they liked. Big brother got his eye on them now.
This is for non UK people visiting the UK, so I am a bit puzzled by your post. We have always checked documents and visa’s for those that need them.
No, it’s been in the pipelline for ages - don’t forget that there was a lot of UK input to ETIAS when we were a member and it was always something that we were planning to duplicate for ourselves.
Yes, but ETA/ETIAS is about visitors from countries that don’t need specific visas - i.e those countries with which we have a visa waver scheme.
Interested to know what the huge hole is in the system that requires a radical re-shape across the EU and UK
Ah I see so really its just removing the visa waiver but using an electronic one instead
It’s pretty much across the globe - don’t forget that the US has had similar for years.
Fortunately I have no desire to visit the US. Haven’t we also had checks by any other name. My mother worked in immigration for decades.
More accurate to say popping back and forth within the EU until the 51% put paid to that.
Not exactly.
It’s not a visa, the visa waiver scheme is still in place. What it does do is vet individuals to see if they are suitable for entry without a visa, if ETIAS is denied it might still be possible to apply for an individual visa to enter the Schengen area (assuming an appeal fails).
The official list of reasons for denial is:
- Your passport is invalid. The ETIAS applicant used a travel document that is reported as lost, stolen, misappropriated or invalidated in SIS.
- You are considered a “risk.”
– He or she poses a security risk to the Schengen Area countries, their citizens and travellers.
– The applicant poses an illegal immigration risk, which means the Member State responsible for issuing the ETIAS to the applicant believes that he/she intends to remain in the Schengen Area illegally, upon arrival with an ETIAS.
– The applicant poses a high epidemic risk, i.e. he/she comes from an area or has recently been to one where an epidemic outbreak has occurred. - You have an SIS alert. An applicant is a person for whom an alert has been entered in SIS for the purpose of refusing entry and stay.
- You submit an incomplete application. The applicant fails to reply to a request for additional information or documentation within the deadlines after he/she is required to do so.
- You do not attend the interview. The applicant fails to attend an interview after he/she is required to do so.
Probably part of the “security risk” but if you have a criminal record and was subject to a custodial sentence of 36 months or longer (24 months for drug offences) it is also likely that you will be denied ETIAS.
One would have hoped all of those things apart from prying into what one’s occupation etc questions, would have bern carried out already.
At 10 GBP a pop, that is significantly more expensive than the Canadian equivalent (7 CAD), or even the upcoming ETIAS (7 EUR), but cheaper than the US ESTA.
That is on its way as well. Just bide your time. It will be arriving before you know it.
But it isn’t - apart from a small number that might flag up (active arrest warrants etc) the presumption is (or rather was) that if you have a valid passport from a country with a current visa waiver in lace it’s OK to let you cross the border.
ETIAS/ETAS/ETA change all that.
Mmmm. The 500 km border in Ireland, which is not checked at all, is a bloody great backdoor for any EU national. Bit of an elephant in the Home Office room 
Any EU national can fly to Dublin and be in the UK, unchecked within hours. As many holiday makers already do.
So is the English Channel !!
Principally because the UK government have closed off all other routes.
Is the UK/EU border in Ireland a problem in practice? - Probably not IMO. It’s not a route used by asylum seekers (not suitable for small boats, too expensive/far by scheduled crossings) which mostly leaves EU citizens travelling to Ireland, and they would be allowed onward travel to the UK anyway under the visa waver scheme.
Does the average EU citizen want to arrive in the UK undocumented in order to work - probably not these days, and there are simpler ways to do it than via Ireland.
As an aside does anyone know where the passports of EU citizens leaving the UK at Portsmouth get their exit stamp done - there’s no exit passport control that I can see.
Presumably the corollary to that is that we aren’t bothering to stamp them on entry either.
They should set up a booth on the Calais beach so they can issue their ETAs there. It’ll speed things up at Dover.