91997E2884

WRITTEN QUESTION E-2884/97 by Glyn Ford (PSE) to the Commission (17 September 1997)

Subject: Mutually recognized training qualifications

What progress has been made towards achieving harmonization of training standards and qualifications across Member States?

Answer given by Mrs Cresson on behalf of the Commission (23 October 1997)

Under the terms of Articles 126 and 127 of the EC Treaty, the harmonisation of training systems and vocational qualifications is outside the Community's competence in the field of education and training.

In Europe, there are 'regulated' professions * in other words, those whose exercise in a given Member State is subject, by law, to possession of a specific qualification - and non-regulated professions, which can be exercised freely.

With regard to regulated professions, the principle of the mutual recognition of qualifications was introduced by a series of Community directives adopted for the completion of the internal market. The transposition of these texts by the Member States has enabled certain legal obstacles to mobility to be removed and has substantially reinforced the transnational recognition of vocational qualifications.

For more than ten years now, the Commission has actively supported the transparency of qualifications in the non-regulated sphere. It also recently published a Green Paper on obstacles to mobility.

The Council Resolution of 3 December 1992 on transparency of qualifications ((Council Resolution of 3 December 1992 on transparency of qualifications, OJ C 49, 19.2.1993. )) defines a practical approach, aimed not at equivalence but at greater transparency of qualifications. A pilot European portfolio of skills has been developed and tested among employers and jobseekers. The Leonardo da Vinci programme supports high-quality transnational projects in this field, some of them in fact stemming directly from earlier pilot projects such as the portfolio.

On 15 July 1996, the Council adopted a new Resolution on the transparency of vocational training certificates ((Council Resolution of 15 July 1996 on the transparency of vocational training certificates, OJ C 224, 1.8.1996. )), calling on the Member States to increase the transparency of such certificates by incorporating information on the content of the training received and the skills acquired. The issuing of multilingual certificates is also encouraged.