EC Urges Greece To Recognize Romanian, Bulgarian Professional Qualifications

The Court judgments in question 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 EU.

The deadline for transposing the Directive expired on 1 January 2007. Greece has 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 Commission has decided to send a reasoned opinion to Greece for its continued failure to recognize other Member States’ optician diplomas following the judgment of the Court of Justice of 4 December 2008 in Case C-84/07. In particular, Greece still refuses to recognize Italian optician diplomas awarded under a franchise agreement concluded between Italian and Greek training establishments. Consequently, holders of such diplomas are still unable to practice their profession in Greece.