One of the reasons that I find Poland so agreeable is the country’s tendency to do things properly and efficiently, although this creates problems when the European Entry/Exit System has been handled differently elsewhere in the Schengen Area. Last year I had the excitement of being stuck at the border as there was confusion over how long I had been in the EU, officials eventually agreed that I had not overstayed.
This time there were quite long delays at the border and officers appeared to be conducting some detailed interviews. The very polite border control officer noted that there was a discrepancy at Bilbao Airport and this isn’t a surprise as I wrote about the confusion at the time. This meant that it looked like I hadn’t left the EU and so I had technically exceeded my number of days in the bloc.
A manager came over and she was efficient and helpful. I was pleased that Wizz Air stored all my boarding passes in one place, as this made it easy to show her the relevant flights. That evidence was sufficient to resolve the discrepancy. She mentioned that this was a failure by the Spanish border authorities and that it would be noted by the airport, although I’m not sure what they do with this information. I do like to imagine that somewhere in Katowice there is now a carefully maintained spreadsheet containing a sternly worded entry about Bilbao.
The delay wasn’t substantial, but it took me fifty minutes to get from airside to landside, meaning that I missed the bus by one minute. The border authorities had accepted that I was legally present, but the bus demonstrated rather less flexibility and departed without me. I’ll be glad when the EES is operating consistently across the Schengen Area.