Bizarre experience with immigration at MAD
 

Flying out of MAD to a third country. I am a EU citizen and hold a national ID card for my country, which I always use to enter Europe as I don't hold a valid European passport at the moment. I hold citizenship for a third country and I use that passport to fly with. The third country passport has never entered Europe, cos I use my national ID card, yet officers demanded to see it, claiming I need a passport to fly. They then proceed to scan my third country document and stamped it with an exit stamp.

What logic does this make?

You are flying out of the EU so a passport is needed. Immigration wanted a valid passport to exit.

By law, my national ID card has the same weight as a passport. The airline/country of destination might require a passport, but exit immigration controls should accept a national EU ID card. They really shouldn't be asking for a passport when presented with a valid national ID. This is common knowledge everywhere that I have been in the EU, except for MAD apparently.

If you'll need a passport to enter your destination country, they shouldn't let you on the plane without one. Among other things, the airline will be required to fly you back at their expense. It's a hassle for all concerned.

Glad you were able to exit and hope it’s a great trip!

you seem to have misunderstood - OP is talking about exit immigration (the Spanish border police in this case), not the airline. The airline has an interest in making sure OP can enter the destination country. Spanish border police do not, but as OP discovered, they are quite flexible with the rules. OP is exactly right that an EU national ID is perfectly valid for both entering and exiting. The airline’s passport check is completely separate to that.

Precisely. The fact that they can scan a non-EU passport that has never been scanned/entered Europe before and stamp it with an exit stamp makes me think EU border controls are a joke. Not to mention that if I was wanted for anything within Europe, I assume it would be tied to my European profile and not a random third country one.

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maybe this is the point- your random third party profile is now linked to your European one?

That would make sense. However, my name is different on my third country one.

these checks are a lot less centralised than you may imagine. The passport scan mostly just pulls the static data off the passport, so they can check it matches the printed data and that it’s validly digitally signed by the issuer. There may be some lookups in national databases, and in transnational “wanted” databases, but these are mostly done by name. There’s no Europe-wide entry-exit system (yet) so there’s generally no practical problem with mismatching the document you use to enter and leave. FWIW, most countries are similar.

assuming you are not a wanted person by either of your names, the result would be the same

Meaning, if I enter Europe on my third country passport, stay for 4 years, no one comes looking for me? Or even cares I overstayed my visa?

As you seem to also be a citizen of an EU country, you won’t be issued a visa and you cannot overstay. The passport you happened to present on arrival makes no difference to that, apart from as an administrative matter (eg if you were to exit with the same passport 4 years later, questions may be asked which would be immediately resolved by proving your status as an EU citizen). So the discussion is moot in your case.

In the more general case, yes, as with nearly all countries, overstayers are not being hunted down purely based on entry/exit records. Apart from anything else, they wouldn’t be very fit for the purpose since they don’t help you find the person 4 years later. There are many other “touch points” at which a persons immigration status can be, and is, checked and which are more suitable for enforcement. If a person overstays and truly lives off the grid with no interaction with government then yeah, it’s likely they could keep it up for some time. That applies in most if not all countries.

There are several places outside of the EU/Schengen where EU nationals can fly to with just their ID card. And people regularly do so.