New legislation proposed by the European Commission this week seeks to make the recognition of professional qualifications easier for non-EU citizens, a common complaint of many who’ve moved to the bloc from abroad.
The proposal aims to make qualification recognition easier “in order to address labour and skills shortages” and “help EU employers accelerate recruitment of talent from outside the EU”.
At present, there aren’t specific EU rules on the recognition of qualifications of third-country nationals. The Professional Qualifications Directive is based on the single market legislation, so is limited to EU citizens.
Non-EU nationals can rely only on limited provisions on equal treatment with citizens of the member state concerned, the Commission explained.
The result is that the procedure to have their qualifications recognised is “fragmented, overly complex and lacking transparency,” as each country applies its own rules.
According to a Commission assessment, the procedure costs on average €1,500 and takes 14.2 months to complete. Some 70 percent of non-EU citizens surveyed on the topic consider the length of the process a “big” or “very big” problem, the Commission said.
On the other hand, the EU suffers from “structural skilled labour shortages” and from “skills waste” as third country nationals often take jobs for which they are overqualified, the Commission added.
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The EU executive has therefore proposed for the first time a specific directive on the recognition of qualifications of third country nationals.
This will apply to non-EU citizens who already live in an EU country or are planning to move and reside in the EU, and will concern qualifications obtained in another member state or outside the bloc.
The directive will apply whether the recognition is to access a regulated profession or to obtain a long-term visa or a residence permit.
The intention is to align documentation requirements across EU countries to avoid disparities, establish deadlines to reduce waiting times, and ensure appeal rights. However, recognition decisions will not be transferrable between member states, the Commission specified.
The directive also establishes a system to recognise automatically the qualifications obtained in a third country for seven professions (doctors, nurses responsible for general care, dental practitioners, midwives, veterinary surgeons, pharmacists and architects), where EU common training standards already exist.
The automatic recognition will apply to qualifications by accredited institutions reviewed by a trusted European agencies to ensure that they meet EU standards.
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