BACK TO HOME PAGE

EUROPEAN REVIEW

ISSUE 31 - Page 3

EU professional qualifications : one step nearer

SOMETIMES THE EUROPEAN UNION legislative process seems to go on interminably. We reported in issue 26 on the approval by the European Parliament of proposals by the Commission to create mutual recognition of professional qualifications between EU Member States. The measure was designed to make free movement of labour a reality for those whose job depended on formal approval by national professional bodies. The parliament made a few amendments but generally everyone was satisfied that agreement had been reached on the general approach. Now, over a year later, the common position of the Council of Ministers has come back to MEPs for comment.

Again they made some changes. Experts in each profession are to be co-opted on to a single committee covering the standards for all professions and they want individual professional cards to be introduced which would carry details of the owner's training, experience and any penalties imposed by their national professional body. Just as important was the change they introduced whereby regulation would be by the host country rather than by the country of origin as the Commission originally proposed. This amendment is linked to the contentious Services directive where similar objections have been made by the parliament and others. It would allow more control over abuses such as temporary workers being a front for companies operating from countries with lower standards and would let host Member States check qualifications and use public interest safeguards.

The amendments will now go back to the Council of Ministers for approval under the co-decision procedure. Perhaps patience is the best approach to the process when it is borne in mind that the annexe to the proposal has to list all the qualfications that are covered in all the Member States including Kinderkrankenschwester, zdravotnicky asistent, odontotecnico and zobarstniecibas masa. After all this is the nearest to success so far in forty years of trying.

Enlargement: a European success story

THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION has conducted a survey on the ten new Member States to see what impact their first year of membership has had on them. Overall, joining seems to have immensely benefitted the countries concerned although the process is thought to have begun as long ago as 1993. Economically the 10 have boomed with Gross Domestic Product rising by 3.7% in 2003, 5% last year and an estimated 4% this year, twice the estimate for the 'old' EU 15.

Latvia was top of the heap with an 8.5% growth rate in 2004 while Lithuania, Estonia, Slovakia and Poland also fared well at 6.7%, 6.2%, 5.5% and 5.3% respectively. Investment and trade have greatly increased in the period leading up to accession and since. The 12 pre-2004 members who are now in the Eurozone increased their exports to the new ones by 140% between 1993 and 2003 while the 'old' 15 invested €13.8 billion in the newcomers in 2004. Returns on investment have leapt from €5.3 billion in 2003 to €7.5 billion last year. Both EU farm aid and structural and cohesion funds, designed to bring the new countries' infrastructure and training up to West

Ljubljana

European standards, have poured in with 1.4 million Polish farmers receiving payments from the former and €1.3 billion payed out from the latter. In many ways the acid test for both economic growth and direct aid is job creation as, particularly, the east European countries suffer from chronically high unemployment. To reach the Lisbon targets 7 million jobs have to be created in the new Member States by 2010 and the scale of the task is underlined when it is realised that the whole of the Structural Funds were responsible for only 800,000 between 1993 and 1999. However unemployment rates are now consistently falling and the new EU-funded programmes are intended to create as many as 2.5 million between 2007 and 2013.

Ljubljana: booming tourism

In other ways enlargement has scored successes. Tourism has increased in cities such as Ljubljana in Slovenia where it was up 23% in 2004, students have moved westward for language study, young people have found new job opportunities without the flood of migration predicted by some western doom-mongers. They have also been found wanting as sooth-sayers in predictions of health scares and an influx of cheap imports. So far both 'old' and 'new' Europe have gained from their joining together.

Back to

Forward to

Up to

FRONT PAGE

NEXT PAGE

TOP OF THIS PAGE

Latvia was top of the heap with an 8.5% growth rate in 2004 while Lithuania, Estonia, Slovakia and Poland also fared well at 6.7%, 6.2%, 5.5% and 5.3% respectively. Investment and trade have greatly increased in the period leading up to accession and since. The 12 pre-2004 members who are now in the Eurozone increased their exports to the new ones by 140% between 1993 and 2003 while the 'old' 15 invested €13.8 billion in the newcomers in 2004. Returns on investment have leapt from €5.3 billion in 2003 to €7.5 billion last year. Both EU farm aid and structural and cohesion funds, designed to bring the new countries' infrastructure and training up to West		European standards, have poured in with 1.4 million Polish farmers receiving payments from the former and €1.3 billion payed out from the latter. In many ways the acid test for both economic growth and direct aid is job creation as, particularly, the east European countries suffer from chronically high unemployment. To reach the Lisbon targets 7 million jobs have to be created in the new Member States by 2010 and the scale of the task is underlined when it is realised that the whole of the Structural Funds were responsible for only 800,000 between 1993 and 1999. However unemployment rates are now consistently falling and the new EU-funded programmes are intended to create as many as 2.5 million between 2007 and 2013.
	Ljubljana: booming tourism