News: General News: Archive
New Directive on the recognition of professional qualifications
Monday 10 April 2006
10 April 06 UPDATE:
Directive 2005/36/EC on the recognition of professional qualifications was adopted on 7th September 2005.
Member States now have two years until 20 October 2007 to implement in national law the revisions of this Directive. The formal text is available http://europe.eu.int/comm/internal_market/qualifications/future_en.htm
19/7/2005
The negotiations for a directive on professional recognition were finally concluded and an agreement reached on 6 June by the Council of Ministers - the agreement takes account of amendments put forward by the European Parliament. A formal text is expected to be published in the Official Journals of the European Union during September.
18/5/2005
The proposal moved another step forward with the European Parliament's second reading vote. The European Parliament adopted 33 amendments on 11 May 2005. It is now for the Council of Ministers to approve these amendments. If the Council rejects any one of the Parliaments amendments then discussions would have to proceed to 'conciliation' between the Parliament and Council.
5/1/2005
The Common Position was adopted by the Council on 21 December 2004.
The UK strongly supports the proposal for a Directive on the recognition of professional qualifications to consolidate, simplify and rationalise the rules on recognition by incorporating a number of existing directives (89/48/EEC; 92/51/EEC, 99/42/EC and sectoral) into one directive. The proposal was first presented to Member States in March 2002 and discussions have continued through the various presidencies. Deliberations concluded 21 April which led to 'political agreement' at the Competitiveness Council on 18 May 2004 (NB the attached are x and y pages respectively).
The proposal carries forward provisions from the existing directives and therefore, with minor exceptions, the principles and procedures which apply to the current regime remain unchanged. The proposal also includes a number of new provisions to enhance the existing procedures, the most significant of which is new and simple rules for temporary provision of services:
Temporary service provision: Articles 5-9
The UK supports liberalisation of services and wants procedures for service providers to be as simple as possible while maintaining public health and safety guarantees. The proposal requires exchange of information between Member States and pro forma registration with the regulatory body in the case of healthcare professionals and that they should be subject to host state rules of conduct. Advance notification and checks are also to be applied to other professions where public health and safety protection may be at risk where a check after the event could be too late to be effective; for the UK this includes child care, social care, veterinary and gas installation.
Levels of Education and Training: Article 11
In the interests of simplification, the general principles of recognition and guarantees have been extended to the 'attestation of competence' level (referred to in the new text as Level A) - removing the 'special procedure' currently associated with this level. As a consequence, other aspects such as compensation measures, derogation from the individual's right of choice and bridging mechanism into the next level will be brought into play.
Common platforms: Article 15
The text defines common platforms as agreements between professional bodies in Member States describing differences between professional qualifications which will increase transparency for a given profession. The Commission has acknowledged that the expert group will be consulted with a view to securing the agreement of all experts from those Member States which regulate the profession before submitting a draft measure to the single committee before progressing with a potential platform. The text also concedes that Member States' powers to regulate professions will not be prejudiced.
Next steps
On 13/01/05 the Common Position was presented to the European Parliament for 'second reading'. The European Parliament now has three months in which to respond to the Common Position.
We will keep you up to date with developments via further news items on this website.
For more information, please see the following attached files:
Common Position of the proposal for a directive of the European Parliaments and of the Council on the Recognition of Professional qualifications.
Communication from the Commission concerning the Common Position
May 2007
On the 7th May the Department undertook a limited consultation on the general overarching piece of legislation. The consultation ended on the 3rd August 2007.
ConsultationDoc.doc
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