Background:

Article 5 of Directive (EU) 2021/1883 on the conditions of entry and residence of third-country nationals for the purpose of highly qualified employment distinguishes between the standard of proof necessary for “regulated professions” versus “unregulated professions”.

A “regulated profession” is defined by Article 3(1)(a) of Directive 2005/36/EC as “a professional activity or group of professional activities, access to which, the pursuit of which, or one of the modes of pursuit of which is subject, directly or indirectly, by virtue of legislative, regulatory or administrative provisions to the possession of specific professional qualifications; in particular, the use of a professional title limited by legislative, regulatory or administrative provisions to holders of a given professional qualification shall constitute a mode of pursuit.”. An "unregulated profession" is a profession that does not fall under this definition.

The Slovak Republic is in the process of transposing this article into national law and launched this ad hoc query to learn about EU Member States’ experiences with the transposition of this article or any other experience with the system of recognition of documents in unregulated professions in existing national practice or legislation.

Respondents:

21 EMN Member and Observer Countries (including BE) provided a public answer to this ad hoc query.

Findings:

A preliminary analysis of the results of the ad hoc query shows that:

• 14 responding countries (including BE) distinguish between the requirements for documents attesting either to relevant qualifications or to the fulfilment of the conditions set for the exercise of the profession applicable to regulated and unregulated professions, respectively. Some countries have a system in place for this distinction even without having yet transposed all provisions of the Directive in question.
   
• 8 responding countries (including BE, for the Walloon Region only) require applicants planning to enter an unregulated profession to have a document attesting to relevant higher professional qualifications officially recognised to be comparable with the document on qualification issued by the country in question. In this case, the procedure to recognise the qualifications is done through relevant authorities, which vary between countries. In BE, the competent authorities are the French Community for applications made with the Walloon Region.
   
• In other countries (including BE for the Flemish and Brussels-Capital Regions), there are different procedures in place to verify the documents attesting to relevant higher professional qualifications. These verifications can be the responsibility of competent embassies, the employers themselves, and are often done on a case-by-case basis. In the Flemish Region (BE), the qualifications are checked against expertise and reliable databases (e.g. UNESCO, Anabin), and in the Brussels-Capital Region it is assumed that the employer will have done the necessary checks to ensure the employee has the right qualifications to exercise the profession.

For further details, please read the compilation of answers attached above.