Germany is once again at the sharp end of Europe’s digital-border experiment. At 18:55 CEST on 7 October the English-language news site *The New German* confirmed that the temporary “safety valve” in the EU’s Entry/Exit System (EES) really did lapse a month ago—and that Berlin, along with eight other Schengen states, still has no written reassurance from Brussels that border officers may continue to ease the new biometric rules when queues become unmanageable. The now-expired safeguard, created under Regulation (EU) 2025/1534, let airports skip the fingerprint-and-photo capture step for up to six hours at one crossing point when waiting times spiked. Airlines, airports and the ADV airport association used the clause heavily over the summer, warning that Frankfurt connections were being missed and that first-time EES enrolment could take several minutes per passenger. Lufthansa told the press agency dpa in September that the system “does not yet deliver the required reliability”—a stark verdict from Germany’s flag carrier. In early July Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal and Switzerland wrote to the European Commission asking for an extension. The Commission’s public reply—“close and constructive contact” with affected states—fell well short of a legal fix, and no follow-up regulation has appeared in the EU’s Official Journal. Travel-industry sources say some frontline posts are still relaxing the checks unofficially, but the Federal Police and the Commission refuse to publish a list of where. For business travellers and other non-EU passport-holders the practical advice is blunt: assume full biometrics every time, especially when connecting at Frankfurt, Munich or Düsseldorf. Allow extra time, keep boarding passes in case digital records prove incomplete, and watch for a formal notice from either Brussels or Berlin that clarifies the rules. EU/EEA and Swiss citizens remain in separate e-gate lanes and are not affected. The episode is a warning that the world’s biggest border-it-yourself project is still bedding in—and that corporate travel managers should factor extra buffer time (and perhaps higher missed-connection risk) into itineraries involving German hubs until legal certainty returns.
Source: The New German
