Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me, Simon Calder.

It's Wednesday the 12th of March, and I bring you some breaking news,

and that is that British travellers will not need an online permit,

the one known as Etias, to visit the European Union and the wider Schengen area,

until, would you believe, April 2027 at the earliest.

I know that because I have been ploughing through documents issued in Brussels by the European Commission,

that's the EU's civil service, and they finally are revealing a kind of staggered rollout

for the much delayed entry exit system.

You might remember this.

Every nation wants to digitise its borders, to make them smarter,

to know instantly who's arriving, who's leaving, to keep tabs on everyone. The UK has the

electronic travel authorisation system, which is going to be rolling out to all arrivals,

apart from those from lovely Ireland from the 2nd of April.

But the EU entry-exit system has been dragging on for years.

It was originally due to be rolled out everywhere from the far north of

Norway to the Spanish islands in the Canaries by the 10th of November last year. It didn't happen,

of course. About a month ahead, when it was clear to pretty much everybody,

that the central database, the member states themselves, wouldn't be ready,

they postponed it and they said,

we're going to let you know within weeks what we're doing.

But actually, it's been months since they said that, and it's only now that the details have become clear.

It's not a great outlook. First of all, let me give you the timeline and then I'll tell you what it

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