Belgium moves remaining paper-based work-permit categories online from 1 May 2026
Spain will process Belgian Schengen visas in Havana from 1 May 2026 as Belgium shutters its Cuban mission
Nation-wide eGate outage snarls Brussels Airport for hours, highlighting EES growing pains
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Foreign Ministry launches pre-summer travel campaign urging Belgians to register trips and check visa rules
On 18 April Belgium’s Foreign Ministry kicked off its ‘Smart Start Summer’ awareness drive. Travellers are urged to read official country advice, register itineraries on the Travellers Online platform, and verify passports and any required visas well in advance. The push aims to cut consular emergencies and prepares citizens—and business travellers—for new Schengen border-IT systems such as EES and ETIAS.
eGate failure causes hour-long queues at Brussels Airport border control
A Europe-wide software glitch took Brussels Airport’s biometric eGates offline on 18 April, pushing passport-control waits past 90 minutes until manual booths and extra officers cleared the backlog. The hiccup exposes vulnerabilities in the newly operational EU Entry/Exit System and signals that travel managers should pad connection times for non-EU staff until systems stabilise.