On Wednesday 6 April the European Commission published a recommendation on the academic and professional recognition of the qualifications of people fleeing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as it had announced on 23 March (see EUROPE 12917/10).
The recommendation calls on Member States’ authorities to approve these recognition cases in a “short time”, as the 2001 Temporary Protection Directive gives these people a right to access the Member States’ labour market.
The text concerns the access of people fleeing the war to regulated professions, including nurses, general practitioners and, depending on the Member State, teachers and educational staff.
The recommendation explains that, if a Member State has chosen to regulate a specific profession, people enjoying temporary protection will have to obtain recognition of their professional qualifications in order to exercise regulated activities as an employee or self-employed person in that profession.
For non-regulated professions, the requirements for employment are not regulated by law and may vary. “For these occupations there are no regulatory barriers to employing a person whose qualifications have not been recognised and there is no single process in place for the recognition of qualifications for purposes of entry into non-regulated occupations” the text goes on to say, also specifying the conditions for recognition for non-Ukrainian third-country nationals not covered by the 2001 directive. The Commission calls on the Member States to apply the same approach to these people and the same recommendation to access employment.
The recommendation also provides tools to verify the training of the people concerned and to speed up the recognition of diplomas, for example by supporting the work of the National Academic Recognition Information Centres (NARICs).
Link to the text: https://aeur.eu/f/14r (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)