The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 270 No 7234 p144
1 February 2003

This article
Reprint
Photocopy

News summary

Related websites
Alliance of UK Health Regulators (more)
Draft EU directive, part 1 (PDF 30K) and part 2 (PDF 35K)

MEPs oppose free movement "holiday"

A European parliamentary committee is expected to recommend that a proposal to allow health professionals to take "working holidays" for up to 16 weeks in another European country without local registration should be dropped (PJ, 27 July 2002, p123).

A spokesman for the Alliance of UK Health Regulators on Europe, which includes the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, said that Stefano Zappala, the Italian rapporteur of the European Parliament's legal affairs committee, which is scrutinising the proposal, said at a meeting last week that his report would not recommend the inclusion of the 16-week proposal.

Mr Zappala says that the draft directive fails to distinguish clearly between learned professions and other professions and commercial activities. "The commission fails to recognise that mounting a legal defence or carrying out a surgical operation is totally different to building a table."

The proposal is contained within a draft EU directive on the recognition of qualifications (COM[2002]119), part 1 (PDF 30K) and part 2 (PDF 35K)

  * PDF files on PJ Online require Acrobat Reader 4 or later