Mr President, the previous speakers have highlighted the special characteristics of the liberal professions and the need for differentiated legislation. Well, as Commissioner Monti has stressed, this differentiated legislation must be produced within a free market, in which clients normally have the possibility of choosing their professionals and furthermore can expect certain standards of behaviour. We should prevent one danger: that of maintaining professional organisations in the field of the liberal professions as a kind of medieval body, which it is very difficult to join, and above all that this type of professional organisation should prevent the free movement of people within the European Union. In other words, the two objectives, that of free access for clients or users to the liberal professions in any country of the Union, furthermore with the right to a system of a general nature, and also the right of access for professionals of one country to another country of the European Union, must be guaranteed. And within this context, the specific regulations for the liberal professions should be aimed, firstly, at guaranteeing discipline within those professions. In many cases, this is not the case. And it would be rather unfortunate for the Commission to imagine that the functioning of the professions is guaranteed by the professional organisations, if we then discovered that, in many cases, the ethical standards of the professions in question are not truly regulated within that profession. And many of us are aware of examples in all the liberal professions. I therefore believe that the Commissioner has made a very balanced analysis and furthermore I must congratulate him on his initiative to hold a hearing with the participation of people from the different sectors, but I hope that they are not just members of the professions, but also representatives of various sectors – industrial sectors, users, consumers – so that all aspects may be taken into account. Ultimately, I believe that a new regulation will be required, a rather specialised regulation, for the liberal professions, but that regulation must not run counter to the general rules of the European Union. As Commissioner Monti has said, we are not talking about a supermarket – one cannot go into a supermarket to buy the services of a doctor – but, within a market context, clients also have the right to benefit from the possibility, for example, of competition within a sector in which there are more professionals than there is demand for them. The supply and demand mechanism can also act as a selection factor, in that clients will normally go to those liberal professionals who offer them the best conditions, including prices. But if we establish an excessively closed regulation, if the conditions for access for clients are too strict, the clients will find themselves trapped as a result of the existence of these organisations and the prices they set, and they will not even have the opportunity to take action against them. I therefore believe that the Commissioner has dealt with the problem very well: we must seek a balance so that the special requirements of these professions – for which we all want very high ethical standards, for which the main responsibility falls to the liberal professionals themselves by means of their organisations – do not prejudice the client, the consumer or the user. The client must have the right of access to legal rules and judicial and administrative bodies, with the aim of guarantee that services are protected as far as possible and that, within the context of the requirements indicated by Mr Gargani and Mr Lehne, we can guarantee free competition, both within each of the countries of the Union and across the Union's borders.

Political group: PSE