Euro Brief
1-15 May 2005. No. 9/2005
- Qualifications Directive Adopted
- MEPs Reject Key Proposal in Draft Food Health Claims Legislation
- MEPs Vote to Scrap Opt-Out
- Resolution calls for Guidelines on Patient Mobility
- International Trade Partners Fear Cost of EU Chemicals Safety Law
- Legislative Resolution on the Prevention, Control and Eradication of certain Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies
The Mutual Recognition of Professional Qualifications Directive has finally been adopted and will become law when it is published in the Official Journal in a few months time.
After three years of wrangling inside the European Parliament's committee rooms and politicking between the Council of Ministers, the Parliament and the Commission, MEPs reached a deal with the European Council.
A compromise based on the Council's Common Position voted in Strasbourg prevented months of tortuous negotiations in a conciliation committee.
The BMA has campaigned successfully along with the European umbrella group for doctors, the CPME for a number of amendments to the original proposals.
Successful amendments have overturned the proposal for 16 weeks free provision of services without having to register with a competent authority, tightened up language requirements, maintained automatic recognition for the 52 medical specialities despite the Commission's proposal to limit the number to 17 and increased cross-border recognition rights for doctors with third country qualifications.
The Second Reading vote on the Zappala Report on the 10th May also defined “liberal” professions covered by the directive with clear derogations for public authority jobs.
An EU national wanting access to a “liberal” or regulated profession will be subject to the same conditions – in terms of qualifications – as nationals of the host country. They must show evidence of having a level of training at least equivalent to the level immediately below that required in the host Member State. The directive lays down a number of reference levels reflecting levels of education and training, which in turn gives an indication to the corresponding qualification of the other Member State.
MEPs in the Internal Market Committee want to increase the number of reference levels to five, as it did at First Reading, while the Council is proposing four.
MEPs also want representatives of the professions to take part in a new single committee, which will manage the various recognition regimes covered by the directive. The series of sectoral directive that operate at present, each profession is supposed to have its own individual management committee.
The Internal Market Committee is also proposing the introduction of an individual professional card. This would contain information on the worker’s career such as training, experience and any penalties imposed.
MEPs Reject Key Proposal in Draft Food Health Claims Legislation
MEPs have torn apart a Commission’s proposal for a directive regulating health claims made by food companies by rejecting a key clause.
They voted against compulsory labelling of food products marketed as “light” or “healthy” by 30 votes to 15 on the basis that it would discriminate against some products at the healthier end of the market. The vote provoked an out-roar among proponents of the directive who believe some MEPs have succumbed to heavy lobbying from large food manufacturers However, MEPs did uphold to ban health claims of products aimed exclusively towards children aged under twelve.
MEPs Vote to Scrap Opt-Out
MEPs rejected the Commission proposal, to retain the opt-out with certain safeguards. The provision allows employees to sign away the protection of the working time directive and choose to work longer than the set 48 hours.
Parliament also wants all time spent on-call, including time not actually working, to be counted as ‘working time’.
While trade unionists welcomed the vote, industry bodies in the UK, where the opt-out is widely used, said the abolition of the opt-out would remove much needed flexibility.
The proposal will now go back to the Council for Political Agreement.
Resolution calls for Guidelines on Patient Mobility
MEPs from the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety Committee passed a resolution asking the European Union to develop a timetabled action plan on patient mobility.
They believe that the Services Directive is the wrong place to codify European Court of Justice judgements on patient mobility. They want Article 23 of the Services Directive – which sets out reimbursement rights for cross-border patients to be deleted and dealt with separately.
Their resolution calls for guidelines on how to obtain treatment, sources of information about health care professionals and facilities, arrangements for continuing care and follow-up, and procedures for making complaints. The resolution goes forward for approval to the European Parliamentary plenary session on 6 June.
The British Government has developed its negotiating line on the controversial Services Directive. While the UK is generally supportive of the Commission proposals, it wanted a derogation for “publicly-funded healthcare”.
UK officials are now also working toward a complete exception from the Country of Origin Principle for the whole of the healthcare sector. They are also negotiating the deletion of Article 23 which sets out a reimbursement system for cross-border treatment.
International Trade Partners Fear Cost of EU Chemicals Safety Law
Australia has joined a growing band of EU trade partners who have expressed concern at the prospect of increased indirect costs of a proposed chemicals safety directive that would affect their exports to the EU.
Australia has joined the USA, Japan and South Africa in requesting that it join in a two-day EU meeting in Luxembourg. However, the Commission has turned down the request, insisting that the directive is “internal business”.
Known as REACH, the proposed directive will introduce a testing and authorisation scheme for over 30,000 chemicals already used in every-day products. Industry has mounted a well-resourced campaign to water down the legislation. First Reading at the European Parliament has been delayed by a series of impact assessments engineered from both sides of the debate. Most assessments have focused on cost implications. Despite the fact the proposal is partly health legislation, there has been no health impact assessment.
Controversy surrounding REACH has now spilled on to the global arena. Australia has published a study which suggests REACH would reduce Australian exports of key minerals to Europe. It concluded that REACH could lead to the relocation of metals processing from Europe to Asia.
The Australian Government wants the legislation to exclude minerals, ores and concentrates.
The UK Government generally supports REACH but has come up with a joint proposal with the Hungarians for a data-sharing scheme to reduce costs for smaller chemical companies.
Legislative Resolution on the Prevention, Control and Eradication of certain Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies
MEPs adopted a Report by Dagmar Roth-Behrendt MEP amending a 1999 Regulation on the prevention, control and encephalopathies.