IP/09/579
Brussels, 14 April 2009
Professional qualifications: Commission acts to ensure that Luxembourg implements EU law
The European Commission has decided to send Luxembourg a letter of formal notice under Article 228 of the EC Treaty regarding its failure to execute a 2008 judgment of the European Court of Justice. This judgment (case C-223/08) concerned the non-communication 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. Luxembourg has still not brought into force all the necessary provisions.
As long as the Directive is not implemented into national law, the 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.
Following the judgment, the Luxembourg authorities have notified one measure concerning lawyers which is, however, not sufficient to fully transpose the Directive in question.
The latest information on infringement proceedings concerning all Member States can be found at:
