The EU Regulation on the recognition of professional qualifications
The recognition of professional qualifications is defined in Directive 2005/36/EC: download the document.
The directive provides for a special scheme for temporary mobility.
In such situations, professionals can in principle work on the basis of a declaration made in advance. The directive also applies to professionals wishing to establish themselves in an EU country:
- as an employed or self-employed person
- on a permanent basis
- other than that in which they obtained their professional qualifications
The European Area of Higher Education
The Bologna Process is a series of ministerial meetings and agreements between European countries designed to ensure comparability in the standards and quality of higher education qualifications.
On 19 June 1999, the ministries of higher education from 29 European countries met in Bologna to underwrite an important agreement. That document, known as the Declaration of Bologna, initiated an important and presently irreversible process to harmonize the various European systems of higher education.
The main objective of the Bologna Process is the formation of a European Area of Higher Education and the promotion of the European system of higher education on a worldwide scale in order to increase its international competitiveness. In order to achieve the harmonization of the European university systems, the Declaration of Bologna designated six principal objectives of whose realisation will be monitored and directed via a series of Follow-Up Conferences proceeding until 2010.
The Objectives of the Bologna Process
The Declaration of Bologna has defined six objectives, to be carried out by 2010:
- Adoption of a system of qualification readily legible and compatible, also by means of the implementation of a Diploma Supplement.
- Adoption of a system founded upon a two-cycle system, that is a 1st and 2nd level. Entrance to 2nd level cycle will require the completion of a 1st cycle of study, of whose duration cannot be less than three years.
- Consolidation of a system of academic credits - based on the ECTS system -that can be acquired in diverse disciplinary contexts.
- Promotion of mobility (for students, lecturers, researchers and technical-administrative personnel) by means of removing obstacles for the full exercise of free circulation.
- Promotion of European cooperation concerning the assessment of quality.
- Promotion of an indispensable European dimension of higher education: development of degree plans, cooperation between university institutions, mobility programmes, integrated studies plans, development and research