Madrid Passport Control

lasno

I travel regularly between Madrid and Ireland with an Irish passport.
Normally when I enter the departure gate area I show my passport to the
Policia Nacional and proceed. However on a recent trip the agent on duty
insisted on stamping my passport. I speak Spanish and queried this and was told that it was obligatory to stamp non Schengen passports on departure. When I pointed out that it had not happened on other occasions he said that the other police agents were not doing their job! He said that since I did not have a passport issued by a Schengen country as far as he was concerned I might as well be from China or Australia. So much for ease of travel in the EU.
Has anybody else come across this. I mentioned this to somebody in the department of foreign affairs and he said that EU passports should not be stamped on either arrival in or departure from an EU country except in
exceptional circumstances.

mikedragon32

It may coincide with the requirement of providing Advanced Passenger Information having been introduced for visitors to Spain from non-schengen states.

I have been there too and i never had that problem. The only time i had to use my passport was when i was paying with my creditcard.

arch_stanton

I live in Madrid and travel home regularly or have vistors here even more regularly and have never had my passport stamped. I've also travelled since the new passenger information rules came into force. Now and again they swipe it through the automatic reader but that's all. Maybe the guy was new on the job or just fed up that Ireland (North) beat them in the Euro qualifiers.

I did have trouble once trying to convince the security guard in Carrefour when using my Irish driving licence as ID that Ireland is in the EU. The fact that it´s written on the front in about a dozen languages wasn´t enough for him

lasno

What really surprised me was the fact that it was on departure that it was stamped. I guess it was one of those guys that love the bureaucracy of their jobs!

Pete4779

You might want to read this:

http://www.politics.ie/viewtopic.php?t=28494

Schengen (all EU countries except UK and Ireland) is the new border control system. Spain are first to start enforcing it.

Zaph

I was in Madrid last week and there was nothing more than the standard cursory look at my passport either entering or leaving the country. I did find it strange though that so many places insisted on your passport if you were using a credit card.

jahalpin

When I flew into Paris from Heathrow they insisted on stamping my passport on the way in, although that may have more to do with the fact they only had 2 people to process around 5 or 6 planes

carrotcake

I've gotten my passport stamped in Budapest a few times. They also like to stamp your boarding pass for some reason! I haven't been stamped in Madrid though.