The Temporary Union of Companies (UTE) NTT Data Spain, Idemia Technologies Iberica and NYY Data Spain Sistemas de Seguridad has been awarded the contract for the supply, installation, commissioning and maintenance for three years of equipment to provide border posts with automated devices, which complement the existing manual ones, within the framework of the entry into force of the EES and Etias systems.
This procurement, which followed a negotiated procedure without publicity restricted to companies that have been approved by the Ministry of the Interior, has a budget of 3,437,610 euros and an execution period of 40 months. After a period of three years, the Santander Port Authority (APS) will transfer the ownership of the equipment to the State Secretariat for Security of the Ministry of the Interior.
The project involves the acquisition, among other equipment, of individual registration booths, automatic doors, verification and supervision tablets, registration tablets, manual double booths and conditioned containers. The president of the APS, César Díaz, explained that the objective of this regulation is to “streamline the registration of entry and exit data and entry denial related to nationals of third countries crossing the external borders of the Member States and of travel information and authorization for nationals of third countries exempt from the visa requirement.”
Tender for the passenger assistance contract
Furthermore, the APS plans to tender, before the end of the year, the contract for auxiliary staff for passenger assistance for the EES for a period of three years. As Díaz detailed, “this service will serve to support the National Police in the information tasks aimed at passengers from third countries at the access points to passport control in the port, in order to streamline and optimize these procedures.”
The base tender budget for this contract is 2,991,608 euros and its execution will have a period of 36 months. Both actions are necessary to comply with the implementation of the European /Exit System (EES) and the European Travel Information and Authorisation System (Etias) and are 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).
The president of the port administration has stressed that “we must be able to reconcile the implementation of the new control system with maintaining the turnaround times of Brittany Ferries in their loading and unloading operations so that they are compatible with the rotation of their ships, as this is a strategic traffic for our port.” On the other hand, the APS is carrying out the necessary work to increase the available space in the transit area of the Maritime Station by 80 m2 for the equipment and passenger flows foreseen in the new border registration system.
To this end, the existing main partition separating the transit area from the main hall will be moved a distance of about four meters towards the interior of the hall. The work is expected to last one month and is being carried out by the company Carpintería Luís Ortiz for an amount of 35,819 euros.
