EUROPEAN REGULATION OF PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION

ABSTRACT

National governing and regulation of professions is to some extent challenged by contemporary international regulation, and partly replaced by considerable international re-regulation – firstly by the European Union, and secondly by globalization of the markets for capital, goods, services and labour. Issues regarding professions are being negotiated at the European level by European professional federations and EU public authorities. These new trends raise questions for the sociological analysis of professions regarding standards of professional education, forms of public regulation, strategies of market closure or autonomy. This paper is a summary of the policies for and the formal regulation of professional education in the European Union. Data are based on policy documents, directives and agreements with a particular focus on the cases of architects and psychologists. Psychology demonstrates most elements of a professional project, proactively emphasizing education, research and academic status and new tasks on an international market. Architecture demonstrates a more established occupation defending the market and emphasizing the social status and the ubiquitous and general role of architecture. There has been a shift from ‘hard’ regulation to more ‘soft’ regulation, allowing more room for professional actors to organise themselves and define their rules of mobility, as well as more initiatives from below and within national and supranational associations, making the policies more contextually determined compared to the external directions from above in the 1980s.

Keywords:

• EU
• regulations
• professions
• architects
• psychologists

Notes

¹The Architects’ Act (1997) reorganised the regulatory framework for architects by introducing lay representatives in the professional bodies. Representatives of the government and civil society are now involved in the assessment of cases of professional misconduct.

²See e.g., European Federation of Professional Psychologists’ Association (1995a).

³The local and regional authorities (such as the régions in France, local authorities in the UK or Länder in Germany), which also become increasingly important in the regulation of professions, will not be considered here because of their little impact on the two professions under review. It must be noted however that both in France and Scandinavia, decentralization has given considerable weight to regional and local authorities since the beginning of the 1980s. They control the rules of labour market entry, and sometimes fees for a growing number of welfare professions, especially in the social sector and increasingly in health and education.

⁴Art. 52 of the Treaty of Rome: ‘restrictions on the freedom of establishment of nationals in a member State in the territory of another member state shall be abolished by progressive stages’.

⁵As pointed out by the Commission in 2001 ‘The administration of the advisory committees set up under each of the sectoral directives has weighed heavily on Commission resources and appears excessive’ (European Commission 2001).

⁶Hall and Lunt (2005).

⁷France, Germany, Italy, UK.

⁸This new diploma is currently being tested in 6 EU countries: UK, Finland, Spain, Germany, Italy and Hungary

⁹ACE web site.

¹⁰Council Directive of 10 June 1985 on the ‘mutual recognition of diplomas, certificates and other evidence of formal qualifications in architecture, including measures to facilitate the effective exercise of the right of establishment and freedom to provide services’ (85/384/EEC).

¹¹The reasons of the particular structure of architects’ labour market in France are detailed in Champy (1998).

¹²For a study of the differential international mobility of young scientific researchers, see Moguerou (2004).

¹³This trend grows more and more importantly as psychology becomes more ‘scientific’ (the biomedical model is gradually replacing the humanistic model which had prevailed until the 1980s) and as the social demand for psychologists grows in a great variety of settings (social and employment sector, health, schools).

¹⁴Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark.

¹⁵A similar shift has been observed in the field of EU employment policies (Ashiagbor 2005).