The European Parliament adopted by 577 votes to 7, with 28 abstentions, a resolution on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council amending and correcting Directive 2005/36/EC as regards the recognition of professional qualifications of nurses responsible for general care trained in Romania.

The European Parliament adopted its position at first reading under the ordinary legislative procedure.

Parliament supports the Commission proposal which provides a targeted amendment of the rules of special acquired rights laid down in Article 33(a) of Directive 2005/36/EC to facilitate the recognition process for nurses responsible for general care who have completed the Romanian upgrading programme. The proposal states that these nurses should benefit from recognition under special acquired rights without the need to prove professional experience.

A number of host Member States have recognised the professional qualifications of nurses responsible for general care trained in Romania whose qualifications did not meet the requirements to benefit from recognition under Article 33a of Directive 2005/36/EC for the purpose of access to the same profession in that Member State.

In order to protect acquired rights, the amended text stipulated that host Member States shall guarantee the validity of the recognition of the Romanian qualification as a nurse responsible for general care granted pursuant to Articles 10 to 14 of this Directive before the date of entry into force of this amending Directive in the case of nationals of Member States who were trained as a nurse responsible for general care in Romania and did not meet the requirements of:

- Article 33a of this Directive in the version in force on 1 January 2007, or

- Article 33a of this Directive, as amended by Directive 2013/55/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Directive 2005/36/EC on the recognition of professional qualifications and Regulation (EU) No 1024/2012 on administrative cooperation through the Internal Market Information System (‘the IMI Regulation’).

PURPOSE: to facilitate the recognition of professional qualifications of nurses responsible for general care trained in Romania.

PROPOSED ACT: Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council.

ROLE OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT: the European Parliament decides in accordance with the ordinary legislative procedure and on an equal footing with the Council.

BACKGROUND: Directive 2005/36/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council (the Professional Qualifications Directive) sets out the rules on cross-border recognition of qualifications for access to regulated professions, as well as minimum training requirements for several professions, including nurses responsible for general care.

To facilitate the recognition of qualifications of nurses responsible for general care whose qualifications did not meet the minimum training requirements upon accession, Romania has set up a special upgrading programme to enable participants to upgrade their professional qualifications to satisfy all the minimum training requirements set out for the profession of nurse responsible for general care in Directive 2005/36/EC. For this purpose, Romania liaised beforehand with other Member States and the Commission.

The upgrading programme started in the 2014/2015 academic year. According to the Romanian Ministry of Education and Research, by the end of the 2018/2019 academic year, it had been completed by 23 higher education graduates and more than 3 000 post-secondary graduates.

Romania presented the results of the special upgrading programme in 2018 to the relevant expert group (Group of coordinators for the recognition of professional qualifications) and, following consultations, no Member State objected to the proposal that the graduates should benefit from a more favourable recognition regime.

The Professional Qualifications Directive, as currently applicable, does not oblige host Member States to automatically recognise the qualifications of nurses who have successfully completed the upgrading programme. However, the Commission envisages a revision of the Directive’s acquired rights provisions for Romanian nurses following the assessment of the upgrading programme’s results.

CONTENT: the Commission is proposing a targeted amendment of the rules of special acquired rights laid down in Article 33(a) of Directive 2005/36/EC to facilitate the recognition process for nurses responsible for general care who have completed the Romanian upgrading programme . More specifically, the Commission proposes that these nurses should benefit from recognition under special acquired rights without the need to prove professional experience.