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Doctors, architects and other professionals moving to another European Union country will find it easier to get their qualifications recognised after a deal between MEPs and the EU's Irish Presidency of the Council to modernise the Professional Qualifications Directive (Directive 2005/36/EC).



The move comes at a time when the working age population in many EU Member States shrinks and demand for highly skilled people between now and 2020 is projected to rise by over 16 million jobs. If Europe is to meet this demand, gaps in labour shortages need to be filled – for example, through mobile and well qualified professionals from other EU Member States. They can be a key source of growth, but only if they can easily go to where jobs are and this requires their qualifications in the EU to be recognised in a fast, simple and reliable way.



The new plan will bring in two key changes which will simplify the mobility of professionals. First, the European Professional Card – an electronic certificate – will improve the procedures for recognition of qualifications. In the case of becoming established in another country with the European Professional Card, the reduction of the deadlines and the principle of tacit recognition will offer professionals the assurance that their qualifications will be recognised within a reasonable time. The card will be introduced for the professions who wish to use it.



The second main innovation concerns the introduction of new possibilities for automatic recognition through common training frameworks and tests.



At the same time, the Directive includes an update of training conditions, including more transparency on continuous professional development, for the professions for which a system of automatic recognition exists (doctors, dentists, pharmacists, nurses, veterinary surgeons and architects).



In addition to mobility becoming easier and faster, the Directive will also strengthen the guarantees concerning the health and safety of consumers and patients. The text foresees the creation of an alert mechanism and clarifies the rules concerning the language skills of professionals.



Internal Market and Services Commissioner, Michel Barnier, said: “Europe is facing many challenges today. One of them will be the increase in demand for highly skilled jobs across the EU. The proposal on professional qualifications responds to the need to have a smooth system of recognition of qualifications in order to support the mobility of professionals across Europe. It will make it easier for well qualified professionals to go where job vacancies exist and this will prove beneficial for the growth of the European economy.”



UNI Global Union President for Professionals and Managers, Ulf Bengtsson, an engineer from Sweden, said: “Modernising the Professional Qualifications Directive will make it easier to find skilled jobs across Europe and is an important measure to relaunch the European economy. In creating a more efficient system for recognition of professional qualifications, it will contribute to dealing with the labour shortage in Europe and will come to the aid of highly qualified job seekers, in particular the young. Two very mobile professions – nurses and engineers – have already shown a clear interest in being the first professions to use the European professional card."



UNI Global Union Director for Professionals and Managers, Pav Akhtar, said: “It is great that the views of trade union social partners were taken into account especially regarding Common Training Frameworks, Continuing Professional Development, Partial Access and Alert mechanism. This underlines the importance of the Directive as a good example of how collaborative working between social partners and the EU institutions and national governments can help achieve real change for European citizens by allowing professionals and managers to benefit from the freedom of movement and professional practice.”



Next steps

The provisionally-agreed text still needs be formally approved by the Council Committee of Permanent Representatives and Parliament's Internal Market Committee. The committee will vote on the deal before the summer break, paving the way for a plenary vote in October.



Background

The Professional Qualifications Directive is essential to enabling professionals to start a new business or to find a job in another Member State requiring a specific qualification for a specific professional activity. The modernisation was one of the twelve levers for growth set out in the Single Market Act (IP/11/469), and in December 2011, the Commission proposed a revision of the existing legislation on professional qualifications (see IP/11/1562 and MEMO/11/923).



Main elements of the modernised Directive:



1. The introduction of a European professional card will offer interested professionals the possibility to benefit from easier and quicker recognition of their qualifications. It should also facilitate temporary mobility. The card will be made available according to the needs expressed by the professions. The card is associated to an optimised recognition procedure carried out within the existing Internal Market Information System (IMI) and will take the form of an electronic certificate, allowing the professional to provide services or become established in another Member State.



2. Better access to information on the recognition of professional qualifications: all citizens seeking the recognition of their professional qualifications should be able to go to a one-stop shop rather than being passed around between different governments. This one-stop shop should be the Points of Single Contact created under the Services Directive, which will allow citizens to obtain information in one place about the documents required to have their qualifications recognised and where they can also complete all online recognition procedures.



3. Updating minimum training requirements for doctors, dentists, pharmacists, nurses, veterinary surgeons and architects: the minimum training requirements for these professions were harmonised 20-30 years ago. They have been updated to reflect the evolution of these professions and of education in these fields.



4. The introduction of an alert mechanism for health professionals benefiting from automatic recognition: competent authorities of a Member State will be obliged to alert competent authorities of all other Member States about a health professional who has been prohibited from exercising his professional activity by a public authority or a court. This is particularly important because there have been examples of doctors banned from practising in their home Member State, moving abroad to work, and other Member States were not aware of it.



5. The introduction of common training frameworks and common training tests, replacing common platforms, should offer the possibility to extend the mechanism of automatic recognition to new professions. Interested professions could benefit from automatic recognition on the basis of a common set of knowledge, skills and competences or a common test assessing the ability of professionals to pursue a profession.



6. Mutual evaluation exercise on regulated professions: a new mechanism is introduced in the Directive to ensure greater transparency and justification of the professions they regulate through a specific qualification requirement. Member States will have to provide a list of their regulated professions and justify the need for regulation. This should be followed up by a mutual evaluation exercise facilitated by the European Commission.



7. Rules on partial access to a regulated profession: the principle of partial access – access to some activities of a certain profession – is included in the new directive. It can benefit professionals who engage in a genuine economic activity in their home Member State which does not exist, in its own right, in the Member State to which they wish to move. Instead, the economic activity can only be carried out as part of a profession regrouping a whole range of activities. For example, a hydraulic engineer who travels to a Member State where the professional activities he pursues are performed by engineers also qualified to work on roads, channels and ports, might be able to gain partial access to the profession there. He/she would, then, only be authorised to perform activities relating to hydraulics. However, Member States could refuse such partial access if it is justified by an overriding reason of general interest.



8. Extending the scope of the Directive to professionals who are not fully qualified: professionals who hold a diploma but have yet to complete a professional traineeship (required under the law of some Member States, for example for lawyers, architects and teachers) before getting full access to the profession will be able to benefit from the Directive if they want to carry out their traineeship abroad. The home Member State of such trainees should offer a clearer framework for the recognition of the traineeships. In this regard, it may limit the duration of the part of the professional traineeship which can be carried out abroad. Member States will have to publish guidelines on the organisation and the recognition of professional traineeships carried out abroad.



9. Clarifying the scope of the Directive for notaries: the text clarifies that the Directive should not apply to notaries appointed by an official act of government.



10. Rules on language skills: the revised Directive clarifies that the checking of the language knowledge of a professional should take place only after the host Member State has recognised the qualification. In the case of professions with implications for patient safety, competent authorities can carry out proportionate language controls after the recognition of a qualification. In other cases, language control can intervene only if the competent authority has a serious and concrete doubt regarding the language knowledge of the professional. In any case, language control should be limited to the knowledge of one language of the host Member State.