On Thursday 17 November, the European Commission decided to take Germany, Cyprus and Hungary to the European Court of Justice because their national legislation appears to limit the provision of services within the internal market.
Germany will have to justify its minimum and maximum tariffs for architects and engineers. The same applies to Cyprus regarding shareholding requirements for all engineering professions, civil engineers and architects, and to Hungary, which grants the exclusive right to a single operator to provide a service.
According to the Commission, these national rules contravene the 2006/123 Services Directive. This directive authorises a number of requirements: the legal structure of a company, minimum proportion of capital held by a company, compulsory tariffs, specific provisions reserving access to the activity of the service concerned by individual service providers, on the condition that these obligations do not discriminate, are justified by the overriding need to uphold the general interest and that they are proportionate.
The Commission is also taking further steps in infringement procedures that have already been opened or where it is opening another procedure against the following member states on the grounds that their national rules create other obstacles to the provision of services: Austria, for maintaining seat requirements for architects and engineers (a complementary reasoned opinion); Belgium, for multidisciplinary restrictions for accountants (a reasoned opinion); Spain, for minimum compulsory tariffs and multidisciplinary restrictions for the different professions (a reasoned opinion); Denmark, for the authorisation/compulsory certification requirement for certain construction services (a letter of formal notice); Italy, for establishment requirements for attestation companies as a prerequisite to provide certification services in public procurement (a complementary letter of formal notice); and Lithuania, for multidisciplinary restrictions on certain construction service providers (a letter of formal notice). (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)