The Entry/Exit System is aimed at making it possible to record the time and place of arrival and departure of non-EU citizens at EU airports, while the Registered Traveller Programme will make it possible for frequent visitors to travel under a simplified system.
The programme is to be tested for six months in six different countries, with Portugal the first to start the pilot project on 15 March, at Lisbon airport.
In the run-up to the launch, the secretary of state for home affairs, João Almeida, and a member of the European Parliament for People's Party, Nuno Melo, visited the border post at the airport, together with Beça Pereira, the national director of the Portugal's immigration service, SEF.
According to Melo, the system is crucial to identifying possible terrorist threats. The system had been developed before the recent attacks in Paris, he said, but the initiative has gained "new momentum" as a result.
The secretary of state said that Portugal was chosen to pioneer the scheme in part because in recent years it has developed a range of cutting-edge technologies in the field.
The other five countries that are to test the system are the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, France and Sweden.
It all very well but there many ways to get in PORTUGAL from Spain by the side of the border by walking until they don't address those side path will always be a hole to entry is been for years tha't how many young people run away from Portugal to avoid the army under Salazar and now is use for passing drugs and other stuff to avoid tax
I say where is a hole there is a get away
By Fernanda Santos from UK on 12 Mar 2015, 00:05