MEPs to facilitate free movement of doctors

Date: 10/07/1997

MEPs will next week take a key step towards dismantling the obstacles which prevent EU doctors from practising anywhere in the 15 member states.

Legislation due to be adopted by the European Parliament at its forthcoming plenary session in Strasbourg will update existing rules dating back to 1975 on the free movement of doctors and the mutual recognition of diplomas and other certificates.

Under an agreement worked out between a parliamentary delegation led by French Christian Democrat MEP Nicole Fontaine and the Council of Ministers, the Union will also begin examining the difficulties which prevent EU citizens who trained in third countries from practising in other member states.

“The Union's treaties provide for free movement and the right to work in another country. We have consistently argued that this should also apply to EU citizens who have qualified in a third country. If you are a doctor who has spent 15 years training, then that is your chosen profession and what your life is about. The fact that this is recognised as an issue is a positive sign,” said a representative of the British Medical Association (BMA).

Supporters of the initiative to broaden the existing scope of the mutual recognition of diplomas insist that the right to practise in another member state would only apply to EU citizens and not to every doctor trained outside the Union.

The main beneficiaries are likely to be Latin American doctors who subsequently become Spanish or Portuguese nationals or their colleagues from the Indian sub-continent who study specialised areas of medicine in the UK and become naturalised British citizens.

The legislation is also designed to speed up the process of recognising qualifications awarded in another EU member state. In future, extensions of the list of mutually recognised professions will be handled by a senior committee of national officials without requiring formal changes to the legislation.

To the evident satisfaction of the medical profession, the Parliament and EU governments have overcome the European Commission's initial hostility and agreed that the Advisory Committee on Medical Training (ACMT), established by the 1975 legislation, should have the right to put its recommendations to governments and to the Commission.

Medical practitioners successfully argued that the ACMT, which includes representatives of the practising professions, the organisations which register doctors and the training bodies, should have a formalised role to ensure that standards are being properly implemented.

Their pressure undermined the view of the Commission that the ACMT's informal role was sufficient and that the inclusion of yet another committee in the legislation would cause confusion.

These changes are expected to complete the mutual recognition system for doctors in the EU.