Abruzzo's Shrinking Villages Look to Brussels on Foreign Qualifications

The European Commission proposed new legislation this week aimed at making it easier to recognise professional qualifications earned outside the European Union, according to The Local Italy. The measure responds to a complaint long made by people who have moved to the bloc from abroad and found their credentials unrecognised.

For Abruzzo the proposal speaks to a structural problem rather than a bureaucratic one. The region's mountain interior has been shedding residents for decades, and the public services that remain depend on being able to staff clinics, schools and municipal offices. Anything that widens the pool of qualified professionals able to work legally in Italy bears directly on that arithmetic.