Information campaign causes great passport demand

Officials in Salzburg are dealing with a flood of demand at passport offices after a campaign by the city to raise awareness of new passport regulations.

After the 15th of June children may no longer travel on their parents’ passports according to the new EU-wide ruling of one person, one passport.

All new travel documents and security passports will have an individual chip installed. Home Secretary Johanna Mikl-Leitner said last week that this is an important initiative to stop child trafficking.

Salzburg started an information campaign last week to make citizens conscious of the changes this might bring to their holiday plans, and passport offices were stormed shortly afterwards.

Parents have six weeks to have passports issued for their children if they intend to leave Austria for the summer holidays – since issuing a passport usually takes time.

On the 30th of April alone, 200 passports were issued at the Salzburg passport office.