Brussels, 7th August – As thousands of West Midlanders are caught in travel misery at European airports West Midlands MEP Daniel Dalton has questioned the European Commission on its responsibility for the chaos.
Reports of some holidaymakers being trapped in queues of up to five hours in sweltering temperatures have flooded social media as millions of Brits begin their summer holidays at the same time as new Schengen zone entry security requirements came into force.
In a formal parliamentary question, Mr Dalton, asked the Commission to explain what precisely it was doing to ensure special rules for flexibility during high traffic periods were being used by authorities, allowing them to undertake targeted checks based on risk assessments.
On the chaotic scenes, Mr Dalton commented:
“These new security requirements have been planned for a long time, and the rules allowing authorities to reduce queuing in high traffic periods should have been properly communicated to border authorities.”
“The Commission clearly has questions to answer on why this was apparently not the case. More importantly we need to ensure that the horrendous scenes witnessed at some European airports are not repeated.”