Brussels Moves on Foreign Qualifications, and Sicily Counts Who Is Waiting

The European Commission this week proposed new legislation to make the recognition of professional qualifications held by non-EU citizens easier, according to The Local Italy. The measure responds to a complaint the outlet describes as common among people who have moved to the bloc from outside it: that credentials earned elsewhere are slow, costly or simply impossible to have recognised inside Europe.

The proposal is at the stage of proposed legislation, not settled law. It would move through the EU's ordinary procedures, and its final shape — which professions it covers, which authorities decide, what evidence is required — is not yet fixed. What the wire establishes is the direction of travel and the problem it names.

For Italy, the question of recognition is not abstract. The country receives large numbers of arrivals and also loses young people to emigration, and a system that leaves qualified newcomers working beneath their training is a waste that both the sending and receiving sides pay for. The Commission's proposal is aimed at that gap.