Cyprus Response to the Green Paper
“Modernizing the Professional Qualifications Directive”
September 2011
1. Introduction
The free movement of workers and professionals, as well as the freedom of establishment and provision of services, constitute two basic elements of the Single Market of the European Union. Recognition of Professional Qualifications obtained in another Member State contributes to the increase of professionals’ mobility and thus the utilization of labour force and enhance competitiveness of European Union.
The system for mutual recognition of professional qualifications had been introduced at the very early stages of the European Community and, until today, it has been under constant modernization and reform with main objective the establishment of a smooth, simple, functionable, effective system which will operate with the less possible burden on national competent authorities. Weaknesses of the system create difficulties and hinder the free movement of professionals.
Cyprus, a Member State with 13% of its labour force being nationals of other Member States, supports the initiative of the European Commission for the modernization of the Professional Qualifications Directive. It is worth mentioning that modernization should take into consideration issues of main importance such as: simplification of the recognition procedures to facilitate mobility, reduction of administrative burden in both sending and receiving Member State, better cooperation between competent authorities-use of IMI, safeguarding provision of quality services by fully qualified professionals taking into consideration the safety and health of the services receivers.
In preparation of the Cyprus response, the opinion and comments of several competent authorities (such as authorities for medical professions, engineering professions and architects, tourism professions etc) were taken into consideration and consultations took place.
2. New approaches to Mobility
2.1. The European professional card
Question 1: Do you have any comments on the respective roles of the competent authorities in the Member State of departure and the receiving Member State?
Question 2: Do you agree that a professional card could have the following effects,
depending on the card holder's objectives?
a) The card holder moves on a temporary basis (temporary mobility):
- Option 1: the card would make any declaration which Member States can currently require under Article 7 of the Directive redundant.
- Option 2: the declaration regime is maintained but the card could be presented in place of any accompanying documents.
b) The card holder seeks automatic recognition of his qualifications: presentation of the card would accelerate the recognition procedure (receiving Member State should take a decision within two weeks instead of three months).
c) The card holder seeks recognition of his qualifications which are not subject to automatic recognition (the general system): presentation of the card would accelerate the recognition procedure (receiving Member State would have to take a decision within one month instead of four months).
Question 1:
The adoption of a professional card will move substantial volume of administrative burden to the competent authorities of the home Member State, especially when the profession is not regulated. On the other hand the competent authority of the host Member State is responsible to verify and assess the qualifications of the applicant in comparison with the national legislation and, if necessary, impose the appropriate compensation measures. Special attention should be given to professions dealing with public health and safety.
Question 2:
a) The added value of the professional card depends on the accuracy and the volume of the information provided by the card. The professional card cannot replace the current declaration required under Article 7 of the Directive. Its added value will be considered together with all other accompanying documents which the applicant should furnish.
b) Presentation of the card will not in any way accelerate the procedure of the recognition because examining authorities should come in contact with the issuing authority of the card for the validation of the information provided by the card and receive any available recent changes, such as administrative sanctions. Consequently, the two weeks period is too optimistic.
c) Acceleration or not of the recognition procedure because of the presentation of the card depends mainly on the type of the card and the information which will be provided by the card, the issuing authority, the accuracy and updating of the information, the possibility of easy verifications of the information, etc.
2.2. The Principle of Partial Access
Question 3: Do you agree that there would be important advantages to inserting the principle of partial access and specific criteria for its application into the Directive? (Please provide specific reasons for any derogation from the principle.)
Question 3:
Inserting the principle of partial access into the Directive is a step towards flexibility and mobility increase; nevertheless, partial access is impossible to be applied in the majority of professions because of the nature of the activities which constitute the exercise of the profession. Partial access may create additional administrative burden to the competent authorities because of the need of inspection of the professionals’ activities. Furthermore, introduction of the principle of partial access should be further examined in connection with the application of compensation measures and the possibility of full access to the profession after a period of partial access in order to avoid abuse of the concept of partial access.
2.3. Reshaping common platforms
Question 4: Do you support lowering the current threshold of two-thirds of the Member States to one-third (i.e. nine out of twenty seven Member States) as a condition for the creation of a common platform? Do you agree on the need for an Internal Market test (based on the proportionality principle) to ensure a common platform does not constitute a barrier for service providers from non-participating Member States? (Please give specific arguments for or against this approach.)
Question 4:
Creation of common platforms will lead to the abolition of compensation measures and introduction of automatic recognition. Until today no common platforms exist and it is useful and necessary for the professional associations at European level to be involved in both the creation of common platforms and the introduction of an Internal Market test.
The idea of lowering the current threshold of two-thirds can be considered only if it is lowered to 50% plus 1 (i.e. fourteen out of twenty seven Member States).
2.4. Professional qualifications in regulated professions
Question 5: Do you know any regulated professions where EU citizens might effectively face such situations? Please explain the profession, the qualifications and for which reasons these situations would not be justifiable.
Question 5:
Qualification requirements for access in a regulated profession defer from one Member State to another due to ethics, tradition and educational system. In order to overcome this problem it is necessary to have harmonization of educational systems of all Member States and also to engage professional associations in European level in the determination of the necessary level of qualifications.
3. BUILDING ON ACHIEVEMENTS
3.1. Access to information and e-government
Question 6: Would you support an obligation for Member States to ensure that information on the competent authorities and the required documents for the recognition of professional qualifications is available through a central on line access point in each Member State? Would you support an obligation to enable online completion of recognition procedures for all professionals? (Please give specific arguments for or against this approach).
Question 6:
Contact Points operating in all Member States provide information to every applicant regarding access to competent authorities in the Member State. In order to introduce online completion of recognition procedure certain practical and technical pre-requisites are necessary. More specifically, the competent authority must secure that evidence of qualifications furnished are not fake or false. Also in several cases language test is necessary; therefore, the applicant must present himself/herself to the competent authority. Furthermore, every competent authority should have available facilities for electronic correspondence and recognition procedures. A legal aspect that is necessary to be considered is the acceptance and validation of electronic signature.
3.2. Temporary mobility
3.2.1. Consumers crossing borders
Question 7: Do you agree that the requirement of two years' professional experience in the case of a professional coming from a non-regulating Member State should be lifted in case of consumers crossing borders and not choosing a local professional in the host Member State? Should the host Member State still be entitled to require a prior declaration in this case? (Please give specific arguments for or against this approach.)
Question 7:
A typical example of consumers crossing borders and not choosing a local professional in the host Member State is a group of tourists with their own tourist guide. In this case, a prior declaration is only necessary if the tour includes visits in historical and other cultural heritage sites while for all other cases the prior declaration is not necessary.
The requirement for both prior declaration and two years’ professional experience should be maintained although in certain cases, such as the example above, this requirement can be removed.
3.2.2. The question of "regulated education and training"
Question 8: Do you agree that the notion of "regulated education and training" could encompass all training recognised by a Member State which is relevant to a profession and not only the training which is explicitly geared towards a specific profession? (Please give specific arguments for or against this approach.)
Question 8:
The notion of regulated education and training could be extended to encompass any education and training recognised by a Member State and relevant to the profession since this policy will encourage mobility. Nevertheless, interpretation of “regulated education and training” is not clear enough and needs further clarification.
The host Member state should have the right to ask for two years’ professional experience if the applicant’s education or training is not considered to be relevant.
3.3. Opening up the general system
3.3.1. Levels of qualification
Question 9: Would you support the deletion of the classification outlined in Article 11
(including Annex II)? (Please give specific arguments for or against this approach).
Question 9:
Deletion of Article 11 and of Annex II completely alters the current procedure on the basis of which a comparison check is taking place between the applicant’s qualifications and the qualifications required by the host Member State for the legal pursue of a profession. Where there is a substantial difference of more than two levels of Article 11, the Directive does not apply, whereas, if it is a case of difference of one level the competent authority imposes compensation measures.
In case of deletion of Article 11 a question rises of what the competent authorities will do when the applicant’s qualifications substantially differ from those required by the host Member State, case in which the competent authority should be able to reject the application. The right of the competent authorities for rejection should be clearly and explicitly referred to in the Directive.
Furthermore, deletion of the five levels of qualifications should be accompanied by changes in the compensation measures and their enforcement, where the competent authorities should have the right to impose another kind of compensation measure that could be additional educational training.
Consequently, deletion of Article 11 may make more difficult rather than improve the recognition procedure. European Qualifications Framework can be seriously considered in further clarification of the levels of qualifications.
3.3.2. Compensation measures
Question 10: If Article 11 of the Directive is deleted, should the four steps outlined above be implemented in a modernised Directive? If you do not support the implementation of all four steps, would any of them be acceptable to you? (Please give specific arguments for or against all or each of the steps.)
Question 10:
Irrespective of the deletion of Article 11, compensation measures should be revised and improved. More specifically,
1. Compensation measures should be imposed on the basis of competences and not purely on the basis of the duration of the education
2. There is no reason for professionals with less than two years of experience to be excepted from the application of the Directive. The requirement for two years’ experience encourages regulation of professions in all Member States in order for their citizens to overcome the requirement for two years experience. Furthermore, mobility of new university graduates will be encouraged when professional experience is not required. Nevertheless, competent authorities at the host Member State should have the right to ask for professional experience in case the applicant’s qualifications are not sufficient.
3. Transparency and justification of decision are basic principles which should characterized administrative actions, including the decisions of competent authorities.
4. The obligation of competent authorities to offer aptitude tests at least twice a year will create considerable administrative burden especially in the case of small Member States and professions with limited mobility; therefore this obligation should not be mandatory.
3.3.3. Partially qualified professionals
Question 11: Would you support extending the benefits of the Directive to graduates from academic training who wish to complete a period of remunerated supervised practical experience in the profession abroad? (Please give specific arguments for or against this approach.)
Question 11:
Extending the field of application of the Directive to cover remunerated training abroad, (although this is a good measure for encouragement of mobility and the facilitation of integration in the labour market of new graduates) may possibly create confusion as far as the scope of the Directive is concerned which is mainly the mobility of professionals.