Deadline on biometric passports to be met

The 15 EU states which are part of a US visa waiver scheme are ready to meet an October deadline on biometric passports, allowing their citizens to continue to travel visa free, an EU spokesman said yesterday.

The US has said citizens from these 15 countries travelling with passports issued after October 26 would need to apply for a visa if their passport did not contain an electronic chip with a photograph.

As of last month, a majority of EU states were not ready to produce the new style of passport. But all those part of the visa free scheme have catch up on their delay, European Commission justice spokesman Friso Roscam Abbing said.

"There will be no problem," Roscam Abbing said.

Citizens from these 15 states with a passport issued before October 26 will not need to change it if it is "machine-readable," with two lines of text summing up information at the bottom of the page with the passport holder's personal data and picture.

Security surrounding international travel has been under the spotlight since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US, and further increased after British police said on August 10 they had foiled a plot to bring down airliners over the Atlantic. The US waiver scheme does not apply to Greece or the mostly ex-communist countries which joined the bloc in 2004, with the exception of Slovenia.

Citizens from those 10 EU states will still need to apply for visas, even if their passports are biometric. An internal European Commission says Washington is not making enough efforts to extend its visa waiver scheme to them.

The Commission will decide whether to hit back by recommending EU states impose visas for US diplomats entering the bloc, before EU interior ministers meet on October 5-6 in Luxembourg.US officials have said any such move would not influence policy in Washington.

The EU had its own August 28 deadline for EU states to start issuing biometric passports.

EU spokesman Roscam Abbing said three EU states - which are not part of the US visa waiver scheme - were currently unable to start issuing the new documents and they could eventually end up in court.