Strasbourg, 13/02/2004 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday, the European Parliament voted on 218 amendments (in codecision, first reading) to the draft directive on the recognition of professional qualifications, by adopting the report by Stéfano Zappalà in first reading. Replacing the fifteen current items of legislation, the directive aims to simplify the administrative steps to be taken in the enlarged EU when people decide to go and live or provide services in another Member State in terms of recognition of qualifications. The draft directive sets out the access conditions for the various professions, like engineering and healthcare but does not cover lawyers or notaries. It sets up a general system of automatic recognition of experience or qualifications for a series of professions.
Discussions are moving very slowly at the Council, but the plenary debate revealed strong disagreement about the text (see EUROPE of 20 January, p. 13). The Commission said in a press release on Thursday that the European Parliament had followed the thrust of the Commission's March 2002 proposal. MEPs made a series of amendments, however, including:
Recognition of qualifications: The EP stipulates that the level of qualifications must be equivalent to that required in the Member State the person is moving to, rather than 'at least equivalent to the level immediately below that required in the welcoming Member State as suggested by the Commission. MEPs aim in this way to prevent a bartering of qualifications.
“Temporary” work: The Commission suggested simplifying procedures for temporary workers in a Member State as long as they do not work for more than 16 weeks. Professionals would not be required to satisfy the normal formalities in the welcoming Member State. The EP scrapped the time criterion, replacing it with qualitative criteria, with the temporary nature of the work being defined in terms of fixed installations, duration and the essence of the work itself. During the plenary debate, Commissioner Frits Bolkestein expressed doubts about the legal uncertainty that such flexible criteria might introduce. MEPs tightened up the criteria for temporary access to the market when professional responsibility comes into place, such as for healthcare professions. They stipulated that healthcare workers should be subject to the same rights and obligations as healthcare workers established in the welcoming Member State, in other words they should be members of a professional organisation and a social security body
Language: The EP stipulates that the welcoming Member State can require migrant workers to provide evidence of linguistic knowledge, whereas the Commission simply authorised Member States to require beneficiaries to acquire the necessary language skills needed to carry out their professional occupation. The Commission said it wanted to stick to wording that clarified Court of Justice case law.
Access to the medical professions: The medical professions will be subject to specific requirements like making a prior declaration to the authorities of the welcoming Member State, and making a pro forma registration in some cases. The EP tightened up the criteria for gaining automatic recognition of various medical qualifications. General care nurses, for example, must have followed a 'duly remunerated' training course. Vet qualifications may be recognised if they were awarded by higher education institutes, as long as the institutes themselves are subject to regular external audits. The MEPs have kept the option of automatic recognition of new medical specialisms as long as they are officially recognised in several Member States.