EU Recognition of Professional Qualifications Directive adopted

The Recognition of Professional Qualifications Directive was adopted by the Council of the European Union on 6 June 2005 and the outcome appears to be a satisfactory one for UK engineers.

Prior to the Second European Parliament Reading on 10 May 2005 there had been a meeting of the Internal Market Committee at which numerous amendments to the Common Position text had been discussed. Some of these amendments would have disadvantaged UK engineers and EC UK lobbied committee members with a measure of success. However, one amendment was passed which would have related the highest professional level to an academic qualification based on "more than four years higher education", thus excluding CEng.

The Council of Ministers was also not happy with the outcome of the committee meeting, and there followed a week of hectic negotiations between the Council, Parliament and the Commission. EC UK was consulted by DfES and made important contributions to the UK position. The result of the meetings was a satisfactory set of edited amendments which went for Second Reading. These were accepted by Parliament and subsequently were adopted by the Council.

The matters of greatest concern to UK appear to have been resolved. There are five levels of qualifications but the highest is now defined as requiring "at least four years higher education". In addition a grandfather article has been included so engineers registered with pre-SARTOR 3 qualifications will be treated as if they had the current qualifications.

The result should be that, under the Directive:

EngTech are third level

IEng are fourth level

CEng are fifth (highest) level.

ECUK regards this as a satisfactory outcome which will give UK engineers appropriate status in Europe . The government, which has acknowledged the support it received from EC UK , is also content with what it considers to be the best achievable result.