IP/08/503
Brussels, 3 April 2008
Professional qualifications: Commission acts to ensure eight Member States implement EU laws
The Commission has decided to refer eight Member States (Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, France, Greece, Ireland, Luxembourg and Spain) to the European Court of Justice over their failure to inform the Commission of measures taken to implement Directive 2006/100/EC, which provides for technical adaptations to the Directives on professional qualifications further to the accession of Bulgaria and Romania to the European Union on 1 January 2007. It updates, amongst others, all the lists of qualifications which benefit from automatic recognition by completing them with the corresponding Bulgarian and Romanian qualifications. The deadline for transposing Directive 2006/100/EC expired on 1 January 2007. The Member States in question have still not brought into force all the necessary provisions.
As long as the Directive is not implemented into national law, professionals
holding Bulgarian or Romanian qualifications risk enduring needlessly
bureaucratic and slow procedures before being able to exercise their right to
work anywhere in the European Union and the potential users of the services of
these professionals may be deprived of the opportunity to benefit from their
expertise.
The latest information on infringement proceedings concerning all
Member States can be found at:
