News

Meeting of CEPLIS ‘ “Single Market” Working Group 23/09/2010

On the 23rd of September, the CEPLIS’ Working Group “Single Market” (formerly “Services”) held a meeting in London. The aim was to discuss after the Summer Break the different evolutions on the Directive on the Mutual Recognition of the Professional Qualifications (2005/36/EC), the Directive on the Services in the Single Market (2006/123/EC) and the Directive on Data protection (95/46/EC).

The meeting was chaired by Mr. John Fish (Irish Inter-professional Associations – IIPA).

Participants begun by discussing the methodology the Commission has followed up today in order to evaluate the application of Directive 2005/36/EC.

As you all know the European Commission has, in fact, decided to consult separately with the national competent authorities of the professions covered by the Directive in question and separately with the professional associations. The British Nursing and Midwifery Council (NCM) was chosen by Mr. Tiedje’s Unit (DG MARKT) to chair the meetings of the national competent authorities of the profession of nursing. Mr. David  Hubert, the representative of NMC, fed back to us on the outcome and the methodology of these meetings.

 The Commission’s meeting with the professional associations, the 17th of last March, was also discussed. A new similar meeting is scheduled for the 29th of this coming October and the Working Group has decided to propose to the Board and all our Members a “non paper”, a written contribution we could say, of CEPLIS to the Commission, identifying the issues we feel the current text of the Directive is rather weak in dealing with.

The following issues have been pointed out:

  1. Minimum Training Requirements
  2. Exchange of information on fitness to practice
  3. Language tests
  4. Continuous Professional Development
  5. Identity verification
  6. Professional Cards
  7. Common Platforms
  8. Temporary license to practice

As mentioned above, the Commission is not seeking proposals for amendments at this current phase of the process but rather the identification of issues of difficulty in the current text. The amendment phase will come once the present one is completed (probably December-January). It seemed thus that it could be a good opportunity for CEPLIS to inform DG MARKT which issues all our Members find problematic in the current text of the Directive in order to strengthen the voice of those of our associates that are facing particular difficulties in dealing with one or several of them. Hence a text with a small introduction will be prepared and will be send to all members for approval and feedback before being send to the Commission in the coming weeks.

The Director General, Theodoros Koutroubas, has also informed the members of the invitation CEPLIS received by UNAPL to co-organize with them a conference on the Single Points of Conduct. The event will be held in Brussels the 18th of November. Representatives of our inter-professional members from Italy, Spain, the UK, Romania and Malta were invited to present the situation with regards to the Single Points of Conduct in their respective countries. The person responsible for the Single Points of Conduct within the Commission, Mr. Steve Fritz, was invited to interact with the professionals and address the meeting.

Ms Maletras’ intervention in front of our Permanent Committee meeting of last June was also debated.