The US has pre-clearance arrangements in mind for both Edinburgh and Manchester. Pre-clearance arrangements for ETIAS may work in the UK but where would you position it? Gatwick and Stansted seem obvious candidates. Maybe Manchester too?
From the EU > UK perspective, Eurostar has a small number of entry points and one core route so pre-clearance is easy. For airline passengers where would you begin?
I don't know about Edinburgh. Heathrow has become less likely because of the number of terminals. US pre clearance at Manchester has been incorporated into the design of the extended terminal 2. Terminal 1 is being demolished and terminal 3 will be the only budget terminal. If Schengen pre clearance was done at Manchester it would likely only be at terminal 2 focusing on the higher value flights. If the cost can be brought down through scale it would be possible to add the facilities to terminal 3. I agree its not as straight forward as Eurostar and would have to be market led. Pre clearance is generally popular with passengers because it gets stuff out of the way at the start of the journey but the cost of posting border staff overseas makes it a trade off between convenience and cost.
Can anyone actually explain what benefits we as in the average UK passport holder travelling to Europe have if we have our own ETIAS system?
It seems to me to be more red tape and paperwork as well as cost when there’s a perfectly good system being proposed that we should use even though we are leaving the EU.
Also what’s wrong with going though passport control and just having your passport scanned by passport control and allowed/denied entry into that country like it has been for a number of years?
There are no benefits of to British passengers from the UK having its own electronic authorisation system. The benefits are better security and easier access for visitors of nationalities that don't require visas. It means that there is more time and are more options to stop someone entering the UK. For the average foreign visitor it means a quicker process once they arrive in the UK (because most checks will have already been done). The US ESTA system is the most well known but Australia has one too. ETIAS adds more complications for Brits compared with during our time as EU members and this year during the transition but makes things easier compared to border checks that most non EU passengers go through today.
ETIAS is for Schengen countries not EU members. Ireland, Croatia, Bulgaria and Romania will not be part of it but neither will their citizens (as EU citizens) need to use it to enter Schengen countries. Under the current legal setup the UK would need to join Schengen to be part of ETIAS.
It won't affect UK passport holders - the UK scheme is for visitors to the UK. The EU scheme will affect us, but the EU don't care if it causes us hassle because we're not EU members any more. We also can't share a system because that would require data sharing and common laws which the UK Gov refuse to consider.
It's worth pointing out that the EU introduction of ETIAS is not connected to Brexit, it's only by accident that the start date of the scheme and the end date of our current shared system are so close.
The coincidence has caused problems and means a delay to introducing it. It was planned on the basis that it was for all non EU passengers at pre brexit levels and adding Brits massively increases the number of people who will use it and its not going to be ready for 1st January 2021.