In an unusually sharp press statement released on 3 February, Freedom Party (FPÖ) Member of the European Parliament Petra Steger accused the European Commission of “total failure” after officials conceded that the Entry/Exit System (EES) will not be fully operational until September 2026. The lawmaker said years of postponements have already produced “chaos at airports, ferry terminals and the Eurotunnel,” citing missed flights and seven-hour queues at Lisbon Airport as evidence. (ots.at)
Steger argued that the continued reliance on passport stamps undermines efforts to seal Europe’s external borders and to detect multiple identities. She called for Commissioner Magnus Brunner—himself an Austrian national—to present a recovery plan within weeks and to allocate emergency funds so that frontline member states can hire and train additional border officers before the main holiday season.
The intervention carries domestic political weight: Austria has extended its own land-border checks with Hungary, Slovenia, Czechia and Slovakia to 15 June 2026 and will have to divert personnel if airport bottlenecks worsen. Business-travel associations fear that ongoing uncertainty could force companies to reroute executives through Zurich or Munich, where e-gates have been more reliable.
![Austrian MEP blasts further EES delay, warns of border ‘chaos’ for summer travellers]()
For companies and individual travellers looking for practical help amid this uncertainty, VisaHQ can step in by providing real-time guidance on Schengen entry rules, customised document checklists and automated deadline alerts. Its Austria-specific portal (https://www.visahq.com/austria/) aggregates the latest embassy notices and regulatory updates—such as shifting EES launch dates—saving mobility managers from having to rewrite policy memos every time Brussels moves the goalposts.
While Steger’s comments have a partisan tone, they highlight the compliance headache facing global-mobility teams. Many firms had already updated travel policies to reflect the 10 April cut-over date; those documents will need another revision. Mobility managers should also note that duty-of-care software often links risk-alerts to the “issue date” on official travel-advisory pages. With EES timelines in flux, automated alerts may misfire unless workflows are manually adjusted.
Commission sources in Brussels insist that an additional 500 kiosks will be installed across key hubs by July, but concede that full end-to-end system tests cannot be completed until after the summer peak. For now, Austrian employers are advised to brief travellers to allow extra time and to keep boarding passes handy for manual stamping when biometric kiosks go offline.
Steger argued that the continued reliance on passport stamps undermines efforts to seal Europe’s external borders and to detect multiple identities. She called for Commissioner Magnus Brunner—himself an Austrian national—to present a recovery plan within weeks and to allocate emergency funds so that frontline member states can hire and train additional border officers before the main holiday season.
The intervention carries domestic political weight: Austria has extended its own land-border checks with Hungary, Slovenia, Czechia and Slovakia to 15 June 2026 and will have to divert personnel if airport bottlenecks worsen. Business-travel associations fear that ongoing uncertainty could force companies to reroute executives through Zurich or Munich, where e-gates have been more reliable.
For companies and individual travellers looking for practical help amid this uncertainty, VisaHQ can step in by providing real-time guidance on Schengen entry rules, customised document checklists and automated deadline alerts. Its Austria-specific portal (https://www.visahq.com/austria/) aggregates the latest embassy notices and regulatory updates—such as shifting EES launch dates—saving mobility managers from having to rewrite policy memos every time Brussels moves the goalposts.
While Steger’s comments have a partisan tone, they highlight the compliance headache facing global-mobility teams. Many firms had already updated travel policies to reflect the 10 April cut-over date; those documents will need another revision. Mobility managers should also note that duty-of-care software often links risk-alerts to the “issue date” on official travel-advisory pages. With EES timelines in flux, automated alerts may misfire unless workflows are manually adjusted.
Commission sources in Brussels insist that an additional 500 kiosks will be installed across key hubs by July, but concede that full end-to-end system tests cannot be completed until after the summer peak. For now, Austrian employers are advised to brief travellers to allow extra time and to keep boarding passes handy for manual stamping when biometric kiosks go offline.
