With longer passport control queues during summer holidays, the Swiss government would like to temporarily pause strict border checks at its airports. But for that, it needs the green light from the European Commission.
Faced with pressure from a number of member states to temporarily ease border controls at airports to avoid lengthy lines and longer waits, the Commission has said it would not put its current passport-control system on hold for the summer holidays.
Even so, in a letter it sent to the European Commission, Switzerland, along with eight other countries, has called on the EU to suspend its Entry/Exit System (EES) border controls at airports and re-introduce, in the meantime, the previous system of manual passport-stamping.
Due to longer EES processing times, “infrastructure overload can occur briefly in exceptional situations,” said a spokesperson for the State Secretariat for Migration (SEM), explaining why this measure should be suspended during the peak travel season.
Longer queues per se are not unusual during peak travel periods, so what is different this time?
This is the first summer since the introduction, in October 2025 (and full implementation in April 2026), of the EU’s automated system for registering non-EU and EFTA (Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, and Liechtenstein) nationals traveling to the Schengen Area. It creates digital records of entry and exit, and records travelers’ facial images and fingerprints.
The process, which takes between 60 and 70 seconds per person is longer than the traditional physical passport stamping in effect before the EES was introduced.
This data collection – which takes longer than just breezing through the immigration control for Swiss and EU/EFTA citizens – is more time consuming, especially when several planes from outside Schengen arrive at the same time.
Even before the summer season began, Swiss airports already reported long lines at immigration booths:
READ MORE: New EES border system at Swiss airports causes longer waits for passengers
Why does Switzerland need EU’s permission for border control procedures at its own airports anyway?
As a member of the Schengen area, Switzerland cannot unilaterally change entry rules for citizens of non-EU/EFTA nations and suspend the EES process at Zurich, Geneva, and Basel EuroAirport.
This move would create a ‘hole’ in the system and create a EU-wide chaos in terms of passport control procedures.
The cohesive system, by which Switzerland is bound, functions on the ‘one for all, all for one’ principle.
READ MORE: Swiss airports advise travellers to get ready for long queues over summer
