News
Good morning and welcome to your Unbound Daily Briefing for Tuesday 7th July - the topics covered in our update today include:
- NATO Summit Commences Today in Ankara, Turkey
- EU Accession Talks For Serbia Hit Blockers
- ETIAS Scheme to be Delayed Following EES Debacle
NATO Summit Commences Today in Ankara, Turkey
The outgoing UK Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, will be meeting with other world leaders at the NATO Summit in Ankara Turkey later today, where defence spending will likely take centre stage as regards UK contributions to the alliance. Reports also suggest that the UK will lead a new European initiative to develop a long-range precision strike missile capability, that will have zero reliance on US technology or infrastructure - and that this will form part of a new European pillar of NATO that looks to solidify military capabilities away from an over-reliance on the US.
EU Accession Talks For Serbia Hit Blockers
EU member state ambassadors will meet this coming Wednesday (Committee of Permanent Representatives or "Coreper"), with one of the major topics being the advancement of accession negotiations for Serbia, whether or not to open up the next cluster of negotiations - but member states are reportedly not keen for this to proceed, with Politico reporting that The Netherlands will veto the move. Serbia is seen to have backslided on its commitments already made to the EU in previous clusters of negotiations, and is seen to be too close to Russia currently. Member states are reportedly uneasy about rewarding this behaviour with further accession talks - but the Commission is concerned that further delays may make the situation worse and push Serbia further away.
ETIAS Scheme to be Delayed Following EES Debacle
The numerous issues with the EU rollout of its Entry/Exit System (EES) have been very visible since the much delayed rollout commenced some 8 months ago, with high-profile concerns raised by EU airports and airlines in recent weeks about the ability to cope over the busy summer months, and the hit to the European tourism industry as a result. However there was intended to be a further rollout of a additional system later this year, that has now been reportedly delayed.
The ETIAS system mirrors the US ESTA system, in that it is a pre-registration process for travellers from certain countries to complete, ahead of departure. This was intended to be rolled out in Q4 2026, but with the issues with EES still being very impactful it is understood that this will no longer happen and will instead be pushed to 2027.
