Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-10-08-Speech-3-035"
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"en.20031008.6.3-035"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to start by thanking Commissioner Monti for responding at such short notice. This has the advantage of allowing us to deal with this oral question under a slightly more ‘prominent’ section of the agenda rather than in discussions in the small hours. I am grateful that things have turned out this way. In fact, this oral question relates to a very important matter, namely the fact that over many centuries the Member States of the European Union have developed liberal professions, which are expected to fulfil certain specific roles. For example, lawyers are required to administer justice, and a notary’s duties include the drawing up of public instruments, while some professions have to obey very specific professional rules, as is the case with medical practitioners, pharmacists and many other liberal professions, where comparable rules and special structures exist.
Let me say that we in the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market have been somewhat concerned by certain developments in Commission policy on the liberal professions over the years. I am thinking of the debate, for example, that we held some years back on the money-laundering Directive. We always have the impression that the Commission includes those who would like to apply to the liberal professions all those rules that hold for, say, supermarkets. That will not work, though, precisely because the professional structures all have their own particularities and these professions also have special public duties. They therefore require different treatment to normal market players who either buy or sell a given product on the market.
In view of recent developments – one being the study by the Vienna Institute for Advanced Studies, which came out some months ago – we would like to know how the Commission plans to address this issue in future. We have actually heard that the Commission intends to undertake a broad consultation of all the sectors involved in the question, and we would naturally also be interested to hear what steps the Commission plans to take after the consultation exercise. The questions we have tabled focus on this aspect, and I think it would be very helpful if Commissioner Monti could also take a clear position on this subject today in his answers to this oral question. This could put an end to a lot of the uncertainty among the liberal professions and provide clarity.
In our discussions on the agenda, Commissioner, we have already agreed that, in the next Strasbourg part-session, we also want Parliament to do what we did a few years ago, and approve a resolution to this effect. That should then give you some kind of yardstick for judging the views of this House on the very sensitive question of the liberal professions."@en1
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