Operation Paso del Estrecho tops 640,000 passengers in first month as Spain applies EU Entry-Exit System for the first time

Spain’s annual Operation Paso del Estrecho (OPE)—the vast summertime shuttle that moves North-African residents living in Europe back and forth across the Strait of Gibraltar—has reached the halfway mark with record fluidity. According to the Interior Ministry, 640,000 passengers and 160,000 vehicles embarked from Spanish ports between 15 June and 15 July, a 6 % increase on the same period last year. This edition is historic because it is the first time the European Union’s new Entry-Exit System (EES) is mandatory. Instead of stamping passports manually, Spanish Police capture travellers’ facial images and four fingerprints and link them to a digital record that automatically calculates each non-EU national’s permitted stay in the Schengen Area. The technology—rolled out at Algeciras, Tarifa, Almería and Motril—was widely feared by ferry operators, who warned that biometric enrolment could create tailbacks stretching for kilometres. To head off gridlock, the authorities doubled the number of inspection booths, installed mobile registration teams on board vessels, and staggered sailing times. They also ran information campaigns in Arabic and French explaining the need for passengers to remove headwear and present children individually at the scanners. The Interior Ministry reports that 96 % of cars passed border formalities in under 30 minutes, with only two peak-hour queues exceeding one hour on the busiest weekend of 5-7 July. For globally mobile employers the smooth start matters. Thousands of seasonal agricultural and tourism workers rely on the OPE corridor to take annual leave; logistics companies schedule just-in-time deliveries around the crossing windows; and Spanish ports earn an estimated €90 million in ancillary revenue over the summer. The successful integration of EES is also a positive stress-test for Spanish airports, which must switch fully to the same biometric system before the end-of-year deadline. Looking ahead, officials say the next challenge will be the return phase beginning 15 August, traditionally more congested as families scramble to reach classrooms and workplaces on time. Additional “smart-lanes” and a dedicated mobile-app pre-registration function are being piloted to keep exit formalities under 45 minutes even if volumes top one million passengers, as forecast.