The implementation of the European /Exit System (EES) and the European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS) is advancing at the port of Santander, with the award of the contract for the supply, installation, commissioning, and maintenance of equipment to provide automated passenger control that complements the existing manual controls at the border posts.
Specifically, the Port Authority will invest 3,437,610 euros in the acquisition of, among other equipment, individual registration booths, automatic doors, verification and supervision tablets, registration tablets, a manual double booth, and conditioned containers. Furthermore, it will invest another 35,819 euros in works to increase the available space, an additional eighty square meters, in the transit area of the Maritime Station for the equipment and passenger flows anticipated by the new border registration system.
The action for the implementation of this equipment is co-financed by funds from the EU’s Instrument for Financial Support for Border Management and Visa Policy (IGFV) and Funds for Internal Security (FESI). After a period of three years, the APS will transfer ownership of the equipment to the State Secretariat for Security of the Ministry of the Interior.
On the other hand, the port of Santander expects to soon tender the contract for auxiliary staff to assist passengers with the EES for a period of three years. The base tender budget for this contract is 2,991,608€ and its execution will have a term of thirty-six months.
The European /Exit System (EES) and the European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS) affect the entry and exit of non-EU citizens, who will have to provide biometric data. The EES is an information system being implemented progressively, emerging as a priority initiative to modernize the management of the EU’s external borders, replacing the obligation to stamp the passports of third-country nationals and allowing the recording and storage of the date, time, and place of entry and exit of third-country nationals crossing the EU’s borders.
At the port of Santander, the primary aim is to protect the “strategic traffic” provided by Brittany Ferries, since the cruise flow is around twenty calls per year, about 35,000 travelers, while the Breton shipping company provided no less than 230,428 passengers last year on its connections with Plymouth and Portsmouth, non-EU territory since Brexit.
For César Díaz, president of the port of Santander, “we must be able to reconcile and make compatible” the application of European regulations and the start-up of the new control system, with maintaining Brittany Ferries’ port call times for its boarding and disembarkation operations so that they are compatible with the rotation of its ships, “since this is a strategic traffic” for our port.
The hiring of new auxiliary staff “will serve to support the National Police in information tasks aimed at third-country passengers at the approaches to the passport controls in the port, to streamline and optimize these procedures.”
