general system of recognition

When does the general system apply?

Directive 2005/36/EC provides three routes: automatic recognition for seven sectoral professions, recognition on the basis of professional experience in craft and trade, and the general system under Articles 10 to 14. The latter is the fallback provision. It applies to psychotherapists, physiotherapists, speech therapists, teachers, engineers, and to all cases where someone comes from the EU but their qualification is not listed in Annex V. Article 10 lists the situations individually, including the absence of acquired rights and partial qualifications.

How does the authority assess this?

Article 11 assigns qualifications to five levels from a to e; level e represents a university degree of at least four years. Under Article 13, the host state must open access to the profession if the applicant holds the evidence required in the home state. If the profession is not regulated there, one year of professional experience in the preceding ten years together with an appropriate qualification certificate is sufficient. Only if the training was at least one year shorter or its content differed substantially may compensation measures be required under Article 14. Before that, it must be assessed whether professional experience has already closed the gap.

What does this mean for graduates from EU countries abroad?

For human medicine from Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Croatia, Malta, or the Baltic states, the general system generally plays no role, as automatic recognition takes precedence. It becomes important in marginal cases: for healthcare professions such as physiotherapy or speech therapy, which are regulated very differently across Europe, for very old qualifications without an entry in Annex V, and for degree programmes that were begun in Serbia or Bosnia and Herzegovina and completed in an EU state at a later date. Austria and Switzerland also apply this two-stage approach.

What to expect

The procedure is an individual assessment. Under Article 51, the authority decides within three months of receipt of the complete documentation, extendable by one month in the general system. Anyone who has to submit additional documents effectively loses this deadline. Certified translations, transcripts, and module descriptions incur costs in the three-figure range. Which differences are regarded as substantial lies within the margin of assessment of the competent authority; it decides on the individual case with reasons stated in the decision.