Tackling free movement barriers

Date: 22/02/1996

AT first sight, hairdressers, engineers and accountants have little in common.

But scratch the surface and you will find that all three have a similar problem - they are all in professions whose practitioners often find they cannot use their skills throughout the EU as easily as they might like.

Obstacles which prevent people trained in one Union country from using their professional qualifications in another make a mockery of the single market and the much-vaunted principle of the free movement of people.

Internal Market Commissioner Mario Monti is in no doubt at all about the importance of removing such barriers and is clear about the Union's aims.

“Our objective is to make the single market function like a domestic market, for citizens as well as business. European citizens have the right to study and to work under the same conditions as nationals in all member states,” he insists.

Legislation has been in place since January 1991 which is designed to ensure that someone qualified to exercise a given profession, such as law or accountancy, in one member state is entitled to practise it throughout the EU.

But five years on, only 50 auditors and accountants have successfully used this procedure to get their diplomas recognised by another member state. Engineers have been more successful, with at least 1,050 obtaining recognition for their professional qualifications by the end of 1994. But those moving to southern member states have had a far from happy experience, with many facing long delays, especially in Italy and Spain.

The failure of the Greek government to apply the EU legislation also caused major difficulties, although ironically it was often Greek nationals who ran into the most problems, when those who had studied elsewhere in the Union found their own country would not accept their qualifications.

Even hairdressers, although covered by specific EU legislation introduced in the early Eighties, cannot always use their cutting and styling skills as they wish. Stylists in north eastern France, many of whom travel on a daily basis to Belgium for their training, face the biggest hurdles. While their Belgian qualifications enable them to work in someone else's hairdressing salon in France, many find they are refused the necessary permission by the local French préfet to open their own business. Such a refusal, argue European Commission lawyers, is a violation of the right of establishment guaranteed by EU treaties.

As the Union turns its attention to persuading a sceptical electorate of the advantages of membership and the opportunities of the single market, more emphasis is likely to be placed on ironing out similar wrinkles which have such a direct impact on individuals.

Monti, who is preparing to lead an information campaign focusing on EU citizens' rights, admits that in the past year he and his staff have “received an increased number of complaints from migrants who encountered difficulties in obtaining recognition of their diplomas”.

The problems are being tackled, but tough action may be needed to break down the barriers.

“We propose to make Community legislation clearer and simpler and to solve outstanding problems, if necessary, by pursuing infringement proceedings against member states,” Monti has warned.

The Commission made its intentions known shortly before Christmas when it began a cluster of legal proceedings against member states accused of dragging their feet and ignoring the spirit of the legislation. The countries targeted included France, which faced the threat of legal action over its treatment of other EU-qualified ski instructors, and Germany, whose Länder are notoriously reluctant to accept the qualifications of teachers trained elsewhere in the Union.

A report approved by the Commission this week shows that by the end of 1994, at least 11,000 people had successfully obtained recognition of their diplomas and just 5&percent; of applicants had been turned down outright.

But the crude figures do not tell the full story. Closer study reveals the UK alone was responsible for recognising over half the applications approved and the majority of cases involved teachers, who are in short supply in British schools but in surplus elsewhere in the Union.

Teachers emerged as the largest single group to benefit from the mutual recognition legislation, with more than 5,000 diplomas recognised. But outside the UK, which accounts for 3,800 of these, application of the legislation, says the report, is “fraught with difficulty”.

The legislation has also been used successfully by health professionals, with 1,450 physiotherapists gaining recognition between 1991 and the end of 1994. Those in the legal profession wishing to use their qualifications in different EU countries have faced much greater difficulties. Over the same period, just over 600 lawyers were recognised, 400 of whom were in the UK, 76 in Ireland, 55 in Germany and 40 in France.

One Brussels-based lawyer said a change in attitudes is vital. “Some member states have not yet taken on board the mind-shift the mutual recognition legislation implies. Basically, if you can work in country A, you should be able to work in country B. But some states and professions are too quick to judge from academic backgrounds and see exceptions, rather than look at the wider picture and identity of the training involved,” he said.

Individuals with grievances can already take their complaints about the application of mutual recognition legislation to the Commission. But they will soon have another avenue open to them, with the setting up of a panel of prominent experts under the chairmanship of Simone Veil, a former senior French minister and the first president of the directly-elected European Parliament.

Established to consider how to overcome the remaining obstacles to the free movement of people within the Union, the panel will also investigate cases where people fear their qualifications are not being recognised.

The campaign to ease the path of people wishing to work in another EU country goes back to the early 1960s, when the Union set about legislating for individual professions. The first set of rules to be agreed, in 1964, governed wholesalers. They were soon followed by retailers, the catering and hotel trade and film distributors.

But by the late 1980s, the purely sectoral approach had fallen out of favour, largely due to the pressures of time and effort involved in individual negotiations. Instead, the Union established a more general system based on mutual trust and recognition of the equivalence of qualifications.

The first set of regulations agreed under this approach, adopted in 1989 and applied from 1991, involved diplomas awarded after the successful completion of at least three years' professional education and training. This covered, in particular, lawyers, chartered accountants, engineers, psychologists and teachers. It was followed by similar measures, approved in 1992 and introduced two years later, for all other regulated professions not yet covered by EU legislation and involving less than three years' training.

Under the two more general systems, recognition is semi-automatic and is based on the presumption that the education and training involved in obtaining the qualifications are equivalent in the country in which the individual trained and the one in which he wishes to practise. Only if the training is substantially different may the host country insist the shortfall is made up either by an aptitude test or adaptation period.

There are now over a score of EU systems establishing automatic recognition for specific professional technical qualifications in various commercial or craft activities, for hauliers and inland waterway operators, the medical profession (doctors, pharmacists, nurses, vets, dentists, and midwives ), architects and lawyers.

In a bid to simplify the many procedures, the Commission will this month table one draft directive to replace 35 existing separate items of legislation.

“It will also cut out a lot of dead wood from the 1960s and 1970s, and give migrants additional opportunities, while consolidating what is already in place,” said one official.

The Commission's investigation into operation of the 1991 legislation concluded that the student mobility programmes, Erasmus and Socrates, may also be helping to increase professional mobility. French students are increasingly studying in Belgium, secure in the knowledge that their qualifications will be recognised back home.

The Commission is not, however, fully satisfied with the way member states are implementing the 1991 legislation and warned this week that it may take further legal action.

In general, problems are more likely to occur in southern Europe. The one exception is Belgium which, despite embarrassing criticism from the European Court of Justice last year, still does not fully apply the legislation, five years after it should have been introduced.