Professional qualifications are the qualifications along with the afferent diplomas that are required by the governing bodies of a state to people who want to practice at a high level in certain jobs or professions. This has been a key issue that had to be addressed by the EU member states. The EU’s basic principle, that of a free market, where everybody could work anywhere, in the EU member states, was put to the test with the new wave of integrated states, that adhered subsequently to the founding members. The problem was that the professional qualifications in one country didn’t match those of other countries, be it because of the courses taken to obtain that qualification, or the exams that had to be passed. So, a unitary rule for professional qualifications needed to be adopted. So, what are professional qualifications anyway, and why did they become so important, not only in the EU, but in the whole World.

Basically, the big fuss that was created about professional qualifications came from the fact that there was no unitary system that could be applied to every institution that awarded professional qualifications in order to ensure a certain standard of quality. This problem has been analyzed by the EU and certain directives were adopted in order to create this standard. Every professional qualification has been taken into consideration, and some conclusions have arisen from this analysis. First of all, the question: What are professional qualifications has been given a universal answer: the qualifications required to practice jobs or professions at a high level. The EU has made up a list of rules that have to be respected by every member state in this particular domain. These rules guarantee the basic fundamental freedoms and rights of any EU citizen that of being able to establish him or herself or to provide services anywhere in the EU. The obstacles that were met by these intentions of creating the rules that would guarantee these rights, where mainly due to national legislations which only recognize professional qualifications of a certain jurisdiction. The rules the EU has put in place are meant to establish the mutual recognition between member states of these professional qualifications. So, these are the fundamentals of the EU’s way of creating an environment with equal chances for every citizen, no matter where in the EU he obtained his professional qualification:

·        Automatic recognition of the professional qualifications for certain jobs and professions thru harmonization of minimum training requirements. These specific sectors for with these rules apply are doctors, veterinary surgeons, nurses, midwives, dentists, pharmacists, lawyers and architects.

·        The so called general system is designed for those who wish to practice a profession in other member states than that in which he or she obtained the certifying degree. Thru this system that person can get his or hers qualifications recognized by the member state in which he or she wishes to practice in order to practice the same profession there. This excludes those domains that have already been discussed in the specific sector category.    

·        When it comes to professional experience the rules are much more lenient.  Professional experience for industry, professions of craft, and commerce sectors is recognized automatically in all the EU states. Even though you could be wondering what are professional qualifications and what are their uses, if work experience is recognized, it is important to note, that without recognition of the professional qualification, the work experience becomes irrelevant, because you wouldn’t have the right to practice it.

·        A special set of rules was established for activities concerning the domain of distribution of toxic substances, and commerce; and another one for lawyers.

This is just one of the most notable examples of the importance of professional qualifications. They stand at the very core of such an impressive beaurocratic structure as the EU. So to the question what are professional qualifications, the best answer is the documents that certify that you are trained and able to do the job that you studied for.  It is important to realize certain qualifications have a different regime than others.  In the case of the EU, professions in the health care domain, as well as architecture, have been given special attention. With the subsequent changes that have been made in the way you can obtain these professional qualifications in every member state, a harmonization of the basic training required has been reached. This has been a huge task, in order to get every state to agree on what are the minimum skills that a person need s to have in order to practice that specific profession. So, professional qualifications are very important for our highly specialized society, in which we are living now.

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