EU launches infringement procedure against 14 countries, including Italy, over non-recognition of Romanian nurses

Brussels – Romania has been in the European Union since 2007, but almost twenty years later, it is as if Romanians are still non-EU citizens. At least those who have chosen a nursing career because practically half of the Union’s member states do not recognize them as such. The European Commission breaks the deadlock and opens an infringement procedure against 14 states, including Italy. There is a problem with the non-recognition of the professional qualifications of nurses responsible for general care trained in Romania, which Brussels believes must be remedied.

Italy, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Croatia, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, the Czech Republic, and Spain have not transposed the Directive on the recognition of professional qualifications, which aims to facilitate the recognition of Romanian diplomas obtained before the country acceded to the EU by nurses responsible for general care who followed a special upgrading program. Instead, everything remains complicated, and the situation does not help Romanian workers or, even less, an EU that has a shortage of nurses and turns outside the EU. 

The non-recognition of professional qualifications produces discrimination and a barrier to the single market that is considered unjustified. The EU executive gives two months to provide explanations and updates before considering sending a reasoned opinion. This would be the second stage of the infringement procedure, the step before a referral to the EU Court of Justice with the risk of fines if convicted.