Opinion of the Advocate General — ECLI:EU:C:2011:162
Date: 2011-03-17
Language of the case: German
Subject matter: Association Agreement;External relations;Free movement of workers;International agreements
Procedure: Reference for a preliminary ruling
Origin: Austria

Summary of the Judgment International agreements – Communities-Bulgaria Association Agreement – Movement of workers – Access to regulated professions (Communities-Bulgaria Association Agreement, Arts 38(1) and 47) The principle of non-discrimination set out in the first indent of Article 38(1) of the Europe Agreement establishing an association between the European Communities and their Member States, of the one part, and the Republic of Bulgaria, of the other part, must be interpreted as not having precluded, before the accession of the Republic of Bulgaria to the European Union, legislation of a Member State under which a Bulgarian national, because of a nationality condition laid down by that legislation, was unable to obtain inclusion on the list of trainee lawyers and, consequently, to obtain a certificate of entitlement to appear in court. Nothing in that agreement allows it to be deduced from the first indent of Article 38(1) or other provisions of the agreement that the contracting parties intended to eliminate all discrimination based on nationality as regards access to regulated professions by Bulgarian nationals. It must also be borne in mind that that provision appears in Title IV, Chapter I of the agreement, ‘Movement of workers’, while regulated professions are mentioned in Article 47 of the agreement, which appears in Title IV, Chapter II, ‘Establishment’, and deals with access to regulated professions without imposing an obligation in that connection not to discriminate on grounds of nationality. Inclusion on the list of trainee lawyers, which is a condition of access to the regulated profession of lawyer, thus cannot be regarded as a working condition within the meaning of the first indent of Article 38(1). (see paras 27-28, 30, operative part)