ECJ condemned Greece for the wrongful application of certain provisions of Directive 89/48/EEC on the recognition of professional qualifications acquired in another EU member-state. According to the above directive, the academic title is used simply to prove that the qualifications acquired by the applicant for the practice in the member-state that granted the title of a profession predicted by legislation are sufficient for the practice of the same profession in the remaining member-states.
For the application of Directive 89/48/EEC presidential decree 165/2000 was published, by which the Council for the Recognition of Professional Equivalence of Third degree Education Titles was set as the competent administrative body for the examination of relative applications. In applying p.d. 165/2000, the Council denied to recognize professional rights to holders of foreign academic titles in the cases that it concluded that the professional rights had been acquired according to the agreement between the foreign institution that granted the academic title and the private educational institution in Greece where the studies took place.
This wrongful transfer of EC provisions by p.d. 165/2000 in the Greek legal order caused the recent conviction of our country. The above mentioned Directive has already been replaced (20.10.2007) by Directive 2005/36/EC, with which Greece has not been harmonized yet and for that reason it has been referred to ECJ again.
Source: Citizen’s Advocate