Use
With a valid passport, EU citizens are entitled to exercise the right of free movement in the European Economic Area (European Union, Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway) and Switzerland, without a visa.
As an alternative to holding a passport, EU citizens can also use a valid national identity card to enter and reside in the EEA (EU, Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway) and Switzerland without a visa.
Strictly speaking, it is not necessary for an EU citizen to possess a valid passport or national identity card to enjoy the right of free movement. In theory, if an EU citizen can prove his/her nationality/identification by any other means (e.g. by presenting an expired passport or national identity card, or a citizenship certificate), he/she must be permitted to enter and reside in the EEA without a visa. An EU citizen who is unable to demonstrate his/her nationality satisfactorily must nonetheless be given 'every reasonable opportunity' to obtain the necessary documents or to have them delivered within a reasonable period of time.
When entering some EEA countries, EU citizens possessing valid biometric passports are able to use automated gates instead of immigration counters. For example, when entering the United Kingdom, at major airports, adult holders of EU biometric passports can use ePassport gates, whilst all other EU citizens (such as those using a national identity card or a non-biometric passport) must use an immigration counter.
Read more about this topic: Passports Of The European Union
Famous quotes containing the word use:
“... it is use, and use alone, which leads one of us, tolerably trained to recognize any criterion of grace or any sense of the fitness of things, to tolerate ... the styles of dress to which we are more or less conforming every day of our lives. Fifty years hence they will seem to us as uncultivated as the nose-rings of the Hottentot seem today.”
—Elizabeth Stuart Phelps (1844–1911)