European Union of General Practitioners

European Union Of General Practitioners

Alment Praktiserende Lægers Europæiske Organisation – UEMO

European Union of General Practitioners – UEMO

Europäische Vereinigung der Allgemeinärzte – UEMO

Union Européenne des Médecins Omnipraticiens – UEMO

Unione Europea dei Medici di Medicina Generale – UEMO

Europese Huisartsen Vereniging - UEMO

Unión Europea de Médicos Generalistas – UEMO

Uniao Europeia de Clinicos Gerais – UEMO

Euroopan Yleislääkärijärjestö – UEMO

Europeiska Allmänläkarorganisationen – UEMO

Directive on the recognition of professional qualifications: update (17 May 2005)

Background

Council common position, first reading

On 18 May 2004, the competitiveness Council reached a political agreement by qualified majority, on the proposal for a Directive on the recognition of professional qualifications.

Once the Council common position was formally published (on 22 December 2004), it was submitted to the European Parliament (EP) on 13 January 2005 for a second reading.

As the common position took into account most of the EP amendments made during the first reading, the EP decided not to re-open the process with a second first reading, but to continue the legislative process with a second reading.

Parliament’s second reading

Given the fact that the gap between the Council and the Parliament positions was small, the responsible EP Committee on Internal Market and Consumer affairs (IMCO) considered it should be possible to avoid the conciliation procedure and to add only few amendments on certain specific points, namely the role of the professional organisations, the scope of automatic recognition for medical specialties, the risk of qualification shopping.

The Committee also agreed that all amendments concerning specific interests should not be supported (e.g. several amendments concerned the engineers or nurses).

Under the co-decision procedure, the Parliament had until 13 May 2005 to propose amendments to the Council’s common position. MEP Zappala’s second reading report was voted on 26 April 2005 by the Parliament’s IMCO Committee. It was then forwarded to the EP plenary for its final vote on 11 May 2005.

Vote on 11 May 2005

There was broad consensus between the political groups, and the EP plenary adopted unanimously a text that had been agreed upon by the Parliament, the European Commission and the Council in informal talks.

Some highlights on the agreed text:

1.  Provision of services

An EU professional wishing to have access to a regulated profession will be subject to the same conditions, in terms of qualifications, as nationals of the host country. The text gives the host country greater powers to check qualification and to make the right to practise a profession subject to certain constraints.

It also introduces safeguards to prevent “qualifications shopping”, where people circumvent national requirements by getting their qualification recognised in another EU country and then demanding that their home member state recognise it.

2.  Scope of automatic recognition

Under the current system, 52 medical specialties benefit from automatic recognition. In its initial proposal, the European Commission proposed to reduce the scope to 17 specialities that were common to all Member States.

The European Parliament, however, had supported the position of the medical profession; this is to maintain the current system. Parliament finally came to a compromise that is acceptable by the two other institutions and preserves the “acquis communautaire” of the doctors.

MEPs voted for the current scope of the automatic recognition to be maintained, that is to say the 52 medical specialities that are now listed under the same annex V, point 5.1.3. However, for the branches of medicine that are only recognised after the Directive enters into force, automatic recognition should apply only to those common to at least two fifths of Member States.

3.  Consultation mechanism

The involvement of the professions is now enshrined both in a recital (Recital 29) and in the text of the Directive itself (article 58a).

A single committee for the recognition of professional qualifications will be crated to replace the existing bodies. It will be composed of representatives from the Member States and chaired by a representative from the Commission. The committee will be obliged to consult with representatives of professional associations.

4.  Other elements

-  Parliament encourages the introduction of 'professional cards' (recital 27a new) containing the professional's career (training, experience and any penalties imposed relating to his/her profession).

-  Parliament adopted a definition of liberal professions (recital 37a and article 2 paragraph 1).

Next steps:

The European Commission and the Council of Ministers have already declared that they agree on the second reading of the European Parliament.

The text adopted by the Parliament is expected to become law in the coming weeks once Council formally endorses the amendments Parliament made to the Council’s common position.

The final version of the Professional qualifications Directive should be published in the Official Journal of the European Communities (OJ) in the months to come. The Directive shall enter into force on the twentieth day following its publication in the OJ. The Member States shall implement the Directive provisions by two years from the publication in the OJ at the latest.

Full text of the first reading of the European Parliament is available at the following web address:

http://www2.europarl.eu.int/omk/sipade2?PUBREF=-//EP//TEXT+TA+P6-TA-2005-0173+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN&LEVEL=3&NAV=X

Latest CPME Information documents: CPME Info 76-2005, 051-2005, 038-2005, 036-2005.

UEMO – PRESIDENCY

c/o Swedish Medical Association, P.O. Box 5610, Villagatan 5, SE-114 86 Stockholm

Tel: +46 8 790 34 52, Fax 46 8 20 57 18, E-mail: