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In furtherance of the Single Market Strategy published in October 2015, the Directorate-General for Internal Market (DG GROW) launched in May 2016 a public consultation on a proposal to introduce a Services Passport and addressing regulatory barriers in the construction and business services sectors. Today, the Architects’ Council of Europe (ACE) submitted a response to express its position on these issues.
First, ACE is critical of the structure of the questionnaire, which leads respondents to acknowledge that a Services Passport would make it possible to overcome allegedly unjustified regulatory barriers to trade in services and thus, help the cross-border mobility of service providers.
ACE believes that DG GROW has a simplistic understanding of national rules that it sees as barriers to cross-border trade and overlooks the reasons that led to the creation of those rules. Their purpose is not to provide protection from outside traders, but rather to enable domestic market to operate efficiently. For example, this is the case with Professional Indemnity Insurance (PII) systems, which respond to local legal systems, contract laws and liability requirements.
On the other hand, the Commission overestimates the hindrance that those national rules are supposed to cause. There is little evidence of architects being prevented from trading their services across the EU because of requirements relating to shareholding structures, legal forms, management and multidisciplinary activities. ACE recalls that 96% of cross-border registration requests from Architects are satisfied, thanks to the system of automatic recognition provided for by the Professional Qualifications Directive. As a result, ACE is not entirely convinced about the added value that a Services Passport might bring to the profession.
From a practical point of view, ACE estimates that an electronic procedure supported by the IMI system, along with the use of multi-lingual standardised forms, could be useful to facilitate communication between responsible authorities in home and host jurisdictions.
However, ACE fears that the work involved for a business to obtain a Services Passport, provide the evidence and keep it up-to-date could be disproportionate to any benefit derived. In particular, ACE is concerned about the validity of the Passport – some information that it might contain e.g. relating to insurance, liability, financial/funding requirements, employment requirements, is constantly changing during any business cycle, making it necessary to frequently update the Passport. Even if updates may be done electronically, ACE fears that this might be tedious and time-consuming for professionals.
Regarding insurance, ACE recognises that the absence of mutual recognition of insurance cover (due to differences in professional indemnity laws) is problematic. It recommends that work be undertaken to develop a methodology for assessing insurance cover to determine whether there is any shortfall and the extent to which “top up” cover may be required.
Download on the ACE website the full commentary submitted by the ACE.
