Britons travelling to Europe will need €7 visa from next summer

Britons travelling to Europe next ­summer will need to apply for a €7 visa waiver, officials in Brussels have confirmed.

Ylva Johansson, the EU home affairs commissioner, said that the European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS) was on course to launch in spring.

Passengers visiting the bloc will be required to apply for a waiver — similar to the US Esta — before travel. It will be valid for three years or until your passport expires, whichever is first.

Johansson was speaking before the launch of the EU’s Entry/Exit System (EES), which will come into force on November 10. Together, the two new schemes, designed to make the bloc’s border more secure in the face of terrorist threats, will make travel significantly more bureaucratic.

Under the EES, all passengers without EU passports will be required to have their fingerprints registered and their pictures taken on arrival in the bloc. They will be checked on each subsequent visit. It will add two to three minutes processing time per passenger, compared with the present 45 seconds, experts estimate.

Speaking to staff involved in the rollout of the system, Johansson said: “After intense dialogues with member states, with you, with the different stakeholders — I have decided that the EES will enter into operations on ­November 10.”

She confirmed that the ETIAS would launch six months later. It means that Britons may be required to have authorisation to visit the EU in place before the May half-term next year and will certainly require it by the summer.

Passengers will apply online or via a mobile app and be checked against EU information systems for borders and security. Most applications will be approved within minutes, although it can take up to 72 hours. The most complex applicants should leave 30 days. It will cost €7 (about £6) for travellers aged 18 to 70. It will be free for people younger or older than those ages.

Holiday companies and airlines have expressed concerns that people will not be prepared and will be denied being allowed to board flights. A senior industry source said: “First there is EES this autumn, which will add a huge level of complexity to some journeys. Then six months later comes the ETIAS. In many ways this is the bigger hurdle as people will have to apply in advance. Turn up without it and, like the US, you won’t be allowed in. It’s going to catch people out, I am sure.”

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It is unclear whether airlines will be required to check that passengers have a valid ETIAS prior to departure in a similar way to the US’s Esta. Last year more than 700 million tourists travelled to Europe “and 450 million Europeans will sleep safer” thanks to the EES and ETIAS systems, Johansson said.

She added: “With the EES we will know exactly who enters the Schengen area with a foreign passport. We will know if people stay too long, countering irregular migration. And the Entry/Exit System will make it harder for criminals, terrorists or Russian spies to use fake passports thanks to biometric identification, photos and fingerprints.”

The European Commission said that the EES would be “the most advanced border management system in the world”, linking all national and European systems.

The EES system was agreed ten years ago, when the UK was still a member of the EU. At the time, British passport holders would not have been subject to the additional checks.