EU border entry requirements because of Brexit - need to prove you have £85 per day to spend

[cakeorwine]

In theory of course.

EU Border staff such as in Spain, can ask to check that you have enough spending money, a return ticket / onward ticket as well as all the passport checks ensuring it's in date, valid during your time in the EU and that you haven't been in the EU too long.

I guess they aren't doing this in full - but they have the right to. It's what we should be doing at UK immigration. Just so we know that people coming here can stay and aren't trying to sneak in for work.

This is what being a 3rd country out of the EU means. Before hand, at ferry ports, we were waved through or a brief scan. Potentially these checks will be time consuming.

And if the EU or any country in the EU wishes to make a point, this is what they can do.

www.msn.com/en-gb/travel/news/spain-introduces-new-85-rule-for-british-holidaymakers-entering-country/ar-AAZVRVQ?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=dde0bb90bf474bc3ad00ae5097ea7424

I will say, though, @BunsyGirl, the longest queue I ever had was as a single person. 1½ hrs as one immigration guy scanned the passports. I think he was pissed off over something so was working a go-slow.
Yeah, looking at you Liverpool airport. 👀

Maybe I have just been lucky!

No, just sensible. And looking at the reality and not some far fetched possibility.

We were never part of the Schengen agreement!

@MarshaMelrose I have regularly stood in a queue on entry to the U.K. for an hour with my DCs. Never queued for that long elsewhere, even in the USA!!! Never travelled from Liverpool though…I will avoid it!

And remember...in the rain! I mean it was spitting and not a downpour but it was still water falling from the sky.
I'd always heard John Lennon had a cruel streak....

But with an EU passport, we had freedom of movement. So that's why we had easy access to the EU

Pretty much every non EU country also does the same. So it can be no surprise that now we aren’t in the EU that those upholding the EU border take the same approach. What is surprising is how poorly the organisation of these checks is. It’s quicker and easier to get into Kenya (I’ve been in 10 times since BREXIT), Mombasa (6 times) and Shanghai (twice) than it seems to be to get through EU immigration at Dover. Never mind the US, which has always been a pain, but still quicker and more efficient than the French. Flying into Spain, Germany, Italy, Sweden and Denmark are also relatively painless. So the problem at French immigration in Dover smacks of lack of training, lack of staff or a desire to ‘make a point’ by making life unnecessarily difficult. So very French of them 😂

@BunsyGirl re the DCs, maybe because the UK is one of the busiest transit points, airport wise at least, in the world. I take your point about profiling. But remain baffled why people are surprised they might not just sail through international borders any more!

My family and I arrived in the UK on EU passports (duel UK/ EU country citizens but haven't physically got/ haven't bothered renewing UK passports) last month and nobody asked anything about how much money we had...

I dont use a banking app.

So the problem at French immigration in Dover smacks of lack of training, lack of staff or a desire to ‘make a point’ by making life unnecessarily difficult. So very French of them

Or lots of vehicles and poor infrastructure with limited room for expansion?

Queues are simply a manpower issue - they have not scaled up processing capacity to match the required throughput. They know how long it takes to process a person/vehicle, they know how many are likely to be travelling a particular day (most will have prebooked rather than turn up and hope for the best particularly on the busy start of school holiday weekend).
When half of the french passport control staff fail to turn up then it is obvious that they are only going to be able to process half the number of passengers - the checks are what they are but passport control/immigration the world over are renowned for being a law unto themselves. The french also have an incentive to make an issue to try and blame on brexit. A french minister/spokesman was on radio4 earlier today discussing this and was boasting how he had travelled to belgium and the neterlands at the weekend and had simply driven at speed across the nonexistant borders and this issues was clearly bexits fault -except there has always been border control check between the UK and france.

except there has always been border control check between the UK and france

But very limited ones. Not full passport checks, looking at the date and stamping it.

You do see the difference between a quick passport check and that?

Not really. We did the Chunnel just before Brexit, in summer 2018. They did everything minus the stamp. The passport dates have always mattered.

I've been through loads - and occasionally had them looked at but often, just a cursory glance. Sometimes not at all.

Now it has to be done in detail

Not Australia. I never even saw an immigration or border control person, never mind asked any questions. I just scanned my passport and walked straught through. I guess all the info they wanted was all tied to the visa.

OPYou mentioned no more Schengen. Iirc, the UK was never in Schengen anyway, so it makes little odds.

The French can be PITAs at Dover or Dunkirk; have experience of both in my 13 years living in Brussels and regularly driving back to the UK.

Actually I didn't mention Schengen. But I remember going to a Schengen country - from an EU country and no passport checks were needed.

Obviously having an EU passport going into an EU country was really easy.

Yes, France can be difficult - but in all the time I have been there over the decades, there's never been an issue. Just straightforward.

Hopefully now it's straightforward - but it might not be - and it definitely takes longer. And border guards could make things harder

• but I did say we were a 3rd country - No EU passport, No Schengen - which basically meant that when leaving the EU, we never decided to join the Schengen area. We went for the 3rd country option.

Look on the bright side - you get a stamp in your passport now!
I travel on my EU passport rather than my U.K. one, so don’t get the snazzy stamp in Europe…

@cakeorwine the port must have been an anomaly because every other way that I entered the EU pre Brexit, my pasport was scanned. This included getting on the Eurostar as well as entering by air. The only difference now is the stamp. If the French were putting their own version of Schengen in place at Dover pre Brexit then that’s their business but they should have been “checking” the passports. I say “checking” because we have machine readable passports so there is little need for human intervention.

Oh the joys of Brexit 🙄

It would probably make sense to shift the verification to a visa application stage instead of at the actual border. Yes, some people would no longer have the funds available, but you could have spot checks to help deal with that.

If you want a long queue, you should try being a US citizen trying to travel by car from Mexico to the United States.

This was Dover.

And now of course, it's scanning, checking dates spent in the EU, checking if not more than 90 days in the past 180, and then stamping.

People who can't see that this will add more time are just in denial. And if the time is increased, then at busy periods, there are going to be knock on effects.

I've seen US Border control on TV - and have done that in a rental car before.