European Commission

The regulations are being updated again from September 6

A change in EU border rules comes into force on Sunday, meaning everyone from the UK heading into Europe from today could face longer queues. The European Union has been rolling out a new Entry/Exit System (EES), which sees everyone from the UK entering countries like France, Spain, Greece and Portugal having to wait for a machine to enter biometric data.

That includes having your picture taken, having fingerprints scanned and allowing the machine to take a copy of your passport. The system was launched at the end of last year, but queues were so long – sometimes around four hours – that the machines were switched off at some borders and a new date for full use was set – September 6, 2026.

EES was originally planned to go live in 2022 but has been repeatedly delayed due to technical problems and then to avoid peak travel times. It was officially launched in October 2025 and was supposed to be fully rolled out within six months.

By April this year, there had already been severe queue delays, with passengers missing flights, and Greece temporarily suspended EES – followed by suspensions at multiple other EU borders. Those suspensions are supposed to end today.

Airlines have called for the EU to extend the suspension until the end of this year. And there are reports that not everyone will face EES, with France reportedly suffering technical problems that could see it out of use this week.

The fingerprinting kiosks at Port of Dover and London St Pancras are not currently working. A Eurotunnel spokesperson told The Guardian it is “awaiting confirmation from the French authorities on the timing of this next phase”.

A source told The Guardian some countries, including Greece, may continue to use manual checks rather than the automated system despite the September 6 deadline.

Airlines trade body Iata last week called for an official extension, saying there are still delays and still reports of missed flights.

A European Commission spokesperson said: “We are in close and constructive contact with those few member states where some adjustments are needed at certain border crossing points. And during an additional period of operational adjustment that is needed at these few operational border crossing points, the commission stands ready to provide additional support to these member states.”

Published on
04/09/2026 – 14:51 GMT+2

Brazil’s EU ambassador, Pedro Miguel da Costa e Silva, told Euronews on Friday that an inspection of Brazilian meat was unnecessary, and threatened to retaliate against the EU ban on imports.

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The European Commission’s decision came into force this week, after Brazil was removed from a list of countries complying with EU food safety rules over its use of antibiotics to stimulate animal growth.

An EU audit of Brazilian poultry and honey is ongoing, but the Commission said that Brasília had not provided guarantees that would allow for an audit of its beef.

The EU ban prompted anger from the Brazilian government on Thursday, which threatened to adopt countermeasures.

“Sufficient guarantees”

“There wasn’t a need for an audit, not for poultry, not for honey, not bovine meat, because no audits were conducted for the other countries,” da Costa e Silva said. “We have provided sufficient guarantees.”

The ambassador added that while Brazil will continue discussing the issue with the Commission, “all options were on the table” if the imports did not resume and that Brazil could be “creative” when it comes to countermeasures.

The Commission pushed back on Friday against Brasília’s accusation of unfair treatment, with the Commission’s deputy Chief spokesperson Olof Gill saying: “Our approach is non-discriminatory, and we’ve given our partners sufficient time and all the information they need to adjust.”

The dispute comes as a free trade deal between Mercosur countries — Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay — and the EU provisionally came into force in May, despite strong opposition from EU farmers, who fear that Latin American products that do not comply with the bloc’s phytosanitary and food safety standards will be dumped in Europe.

“Food safety rules are a matter of the highest priority for EU citizens,” Gill added. “These rules have been well known for a long time, with third countries having been informed going back many years.”

The EU introduced new rules to combat antimicrobial resistance in 2018, which have been applied to EU producers since 2022 and to foreign importers since Thursday.

Published on
03/09/2026 – 16:54 GMT+2

The European Commission suspended imports of meat from Brazil on Thursday over concerns about antibiotic use, after Brasília failed to convince the EU executive that its products comply with European standards.

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The move comes as Brazilian meat imports lie at the heart of opposition to the free trade agreement signed in January 2026 by the Commission with Mercosur countries — Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay.

EU farmers accuse Latin American producers of failing to comply with the bloc’s phytosanitary and food safety standards, arguing that this gives Latin American products an unfair advantage on the EU market.

“We have rules that ban antimicrobials or using antimicrobials for growth,” Commission spokesperson Eva Hrncirova said. “On the 3rd of September, the list of countries that basically comply with our rules on antimicrobials comes into application.”

The spokesperson added that Brazil was not currently on the list, meaning its imports were suspended as of Thursday.

No guarantees for beef

The suspension, which resulted from a vote by national experts in May, covers beef, poultry, eggs and honey.

Imports of some products could resume following an audit of poultry and honey, launched on the basis of written guarantees of compliance provided by Brasília. The audit is expected to run until the end of the week, although the conclusions will take longer.

Hrncirova said no such guarantees had been provided for beef, adding that they must cover the animals’ entire life cycle, which is naturally longer for cattle.

Brazil’s ambassador to the EU, Pedro Miguel da Costa e Silva, told Euronews ahead of the summer that technical discussions with the Commission were ongoing. However, Brazil ultimately failed to prevent the suspension from taking effect.

Trade in agricultural products was the most contentious issue throughout the 25-year negotiations over the Mercosur agreement.

The deal was provisionally applied in May after the European Parliament suspended the ratification process with a legal referral to the European Court of Justice.

In an exclusive interview, European Union Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič told Euronews that the EU is not in a position to mediate in the trade war between Canada and the United States following the collapse of their trade talks.

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Ten days ago, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney walked away from the negotiations with the Trump administration, blaming them for pressuring Canada over the use of the French language.

In the following days, US President Donald Trump announced 50% US tariffs on Canadian cars and trucks, to which Ottawa retaliated with tariffs on more than 700 US imports, worth about $20 billion (€17.2 billion).

“I don’t think that we are in a position to mediate,” Šefčovič said. “At the same time I know that they [Canada and the US] have such a close economic relationship that, despite the current tension, sooner or later there will be attempts to resolve it.”

The Commissioner added that “tariffs are taxes which are paid in the end by the economic operators or by the citizens”, a message he has reiterated several times over the last year during the EU’s own trade dispute with Washington.

“We clearly support free and fair trade with the lower or no tariffs at all,” he told Euronews.

Ready to cooperate

Since the trade talks stopped, Carney has called for a closer relationship between Ottawa and Brussels and announced he will attend European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s State of the Union in Strasbourg in mid-September, one of the main events in Brussels’ political calendar.

An EU-Canada summit is also scheduled for later this autumn.

Šefčovič said the Commission is ready to explore “all possibilities” to increase cooperation with Canada, but he added that any new arrangements “would very much also depend on how comfortable the Canadian side would feel and what is its level of ambition”.

He pointed out that after Brussels clinched a trade deal with Ottawa in 2016, trade between the EU and Canada grew by 75% – but he also suggested that the deal could be pushed further.

“On both sides, we have certain elements which we can improve, still certain barriers, certain sensitivities for the products. I really think that we can explore much more that.”

Šefčovič said that a digital agreement might be signed with Canada before the end of the year, and he also cited coming cooperation in critical raw materials with potential joint investments.

Ottawa is seen by Brussels as a like-minded partner sharing its vision of the new global trade order, and Šefčovič hopes to have its backing to get closer to members of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), which has liberalised trade between 12 countries in the Asia-Pacific region and the Americas, including Canada – but not the US. The UK became the pact’s first and to date only European member in 2024, with Canada ratifying its full accession as of 1 September.

“Canadians are very important partners for forging a new level of cooperation with the CTPPP,” Šefčovič said, “which represents together 40 percent of global trade.”