Commission of the European Communities v Hellenic Republic.
Date: 2008-10-23
28. However, neither Article 1(a) nor any other provision of Directive 89/48 contains any limitation as regards the Member State in which an applicant must have acquired his professional qualifications. It follows expressly from the first paragraph of Article 1(a) that it is sufficient that the education and training were received ‘mainly in the Community’. It has already been held that that expression covers both education and training received entirely in the Member State which awarded the formal qualification in question and that received partly or wholly in another Member State (Case C‑102/02 Beuttenmüller  [2004] ECR I‑5405, paragraph 41).
29. Furthermore, no reason can justify such a limitation, since the main question, for the purposes of adjudicating on the applicability of Directive 89/48, is whether the applicant is or is not entitled to pursue a regulated profession in a Member State. According to the system put in place by that directive, a diploma is recognised not on the basis of the intrinsic value of the education and training to which it attests, but because it gives the right to take up a regulated profession in the Member State where it was awarded or recognised. Differences in the duration or content of education and training acquired in another Member State by comparison with that provided in the host Member State are not therefore sufficient to justify a refusal to recognise the professional qualification concerned. At most, where those differences are substantial, they may, in accordance with Article 4 of that directive, justify the host Member State requiring that the applicant satisfy one or other of the compensatory measures set out in that provision (see, to that effect, Beuttenmüller , paragraph 52, and Case C‑330/03 Colegio  [2006] ECR I‑801, paragraph 19).
31. It is inherent in that system, which does not harmonise the education and training giving access to the regulated professions, that it is for the competent authorities awarding diplomas giving such access alone to verify, in the light of the rules applicable within the framework of their professional education and training system, whether the conditions necessary for their award are fulfilled. It may be observed, in this respect, that Article 8(1) of Directive 89/48 expressly obliges the host Member State to accept, in any event, as proof that the conditions for recognition of a diploma are satisfied, the certificates and documents issued by the competent authorities in the other Member States. Consequently, the host Member State cannot examine the basis on which such documents have been issued, although they do have the possibility of carrying out a review as regards those of the conditions laid down in Article 1(a) of Directive 89/48 which, on the face of those documents, do not appear to have been satisfied already.
32. Consequently, it is also solely in the light of the rules applicable within the framework of the professional education and training system of the Member State to which the competent authority awarding a diploma belongs that it can be assessed whether the educational establishment in which the holder received his education and training is ‘a university or establishment of higher education’ or ‘another establishment of equivalent level’ within the meaning of the second indent of the first paragraph of Article 1(a) of Directive 89/48.
36. It should be added that that interpretation does not call into question the responsibility of the Hellenic Republic for the content of teaching and the organisation of the education system.
38. Next, unlike the sectoral directives relating to specific professions, Directive 89/48 is not intended to harmonise the conditions for the taking up or pursuit of the various professions to which it applies and the Member States therefore remain competent to define such conditions within the limits imposed by Community law (Case C‑149/05 Price  [2006] ECR I‑7691, paragraph 54).
40. Similarly, since they are awarded by the competent authorities of other Member States solely in the light of the applicable rules within the framework of their respective education and training systems, diplomas awarded on completion of education and training provided within the framework of homologation agreements do not fall, in the context of Directive 89/48, within the Greek education system. Consequently, the objective of ensuring a high level of Greek university education and training is not called into question by such education and training, the quality of which it is for the competent authorities of the other Member States issuing the diplomas awarded on completion of that education and training to ensure.
58. It should be recalled that the provisions of directives must be implemented with unquestionable binding force, and with the necessary specificity, precision and clarity, in order to satisfy the requirements of legal certainty. In this respect, mere statements, such as those made by the Hellenic Republic at the hearing, which, in the continued existence of express provisions of the Civil Service Code, maintain, for the persons concerned, a state of uncertainty as regards the extent of their rights in an area governed by Community law are not sufficient (see, to that effect, in particular Case C-80/92 Commission v Belgium  [1994] ECR I-1019, paragraph 20; Case C‑151/94 Commission v Luxembourg  [1995] ECR I-3685, paragraph 18; and Case C-415/01 Commission v Belgium  [2003] ECR I-2081, paragraph 21).
71. As the Hellenic Republic acknowledges, and as is moreover apparent from the case­‑law, the TEE cannot make registration, in its registers, of engineers holding a diploma within the meaning of Directive 89/48 subject to success in a competition or the presentation of a certificate issued by the Dikatsa (see, to that effect, Case C‑141/04 Peros  [2005] ECR I‑7163, paragraphs 35 and 39). Such requirements are contrary to subparagraph (a) of the first paragraph of Article 3 of Directive 89/48.