EUROPEAN REGULATION OF PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION: A study of documents focussing on architects and psychologists in the EU Open Access

National governing and regulation of professions is to some extent challenged by contemporary international regulation, and partly replaced by considerable international re-regulation – firstly by the European Union, and secondly by globalization of the markets for capital, goods, services and labour. Issues regarding professions are being negotiated at the European level by European professional federations and EU public authorities. These new trends raise questions for the sociological analysis of professions regarding standards of professional education, forms of public regulation, strategies of market closure or autonomy. This paper is a summary of the policies for and the formal regulation of professional education in the European Union. Data are based on policy documents, directives and agreements with a particular focus on the cases of architects and psychologists. Psychology demonstrates most elements of a professional project, proactively emphasizing education, research and academic status and new tasks on an international market. Architecture demonstrates a more established occupation defending the market and emphasizing the social status and the ubiquitous and general role of architecture. There has been a shift from ‘hard’ regulation to more ‘soft’ regulation, allowing more room for professional actors to organise themselves and define their rules of mobility, as well as more initiatives from below and within national and supranational associations, making the policies more contextually determined compared to the external directions from above in the 1980s.

National governing and regulation of professions is to some extent challenged by contemporary international regulation, and partly replaced by considerable international re-regulation – firstly by the European Union, and secondly by globalization of the markets for capital, goods, services and labour. Issues regarding professions are being negotiated at the European level between European professional federations and EU public authorities. These new trends raise a series of questions for the sociological analysis of professions regarding standards of professional education, forms of public regulation, strategies of market closure or autonomy in the daily work. The aim of this paper is to describe the content of European policies towards professional groups and to explore the way in which they reshape the strategies of professional associations, both at national and international level. A particular attention is laid on two classical spheres of activity of professional associations: education and competition. The data are based on policy documents, directives and agreements. There is a particular focus on the cases of architects and psychologists as preparation for a major comparative study of these professions in certain countries, particularly France and Sweden. The explorative comparative approach of countries and occupations is chosen to demonstrate differences and similarities and to follow possible temporal changes in actions, actors and strategies on national as well as international levels (Burau et al. 2004).

In the first part of the paper the concept of regulation is discussed and definitions are proposed in order to better characterize the main features of the changing regulatory regimes for professions. The main features of the regulatory frameworks that emerge at the European level are also described. In the second section the process of Europeanization of architects and psychologists is examined, focussing on documents and interviews conducted with officers of these supranational associations. These two professions have been chosen for their marked differences in terms of national and organizational regulation. Architects represent industrial and commercial services connected to engineering, a highly internationalized profession. National boundaries are weak, since language does not appear as an essential dimension in professional practice and clients are often organizations rather than individuals. National differences in administrative procedures for architecture (access to public projects for example) as well as aesthetic standards may, however, represent barriers to international mobility. In contrast, psychology is a welfare-state profession directed to non-commercial human services and individuals as clients. A good mastery of national languages is a precondition for professional practice, and psychologists usually practice in human-service organizations locally situated and strongly nationally defined and regulated. The re-regulation of architects concerns mainly services, while education is the main issue for psychologists.

European policies have recently come under severe criticism for promoting an excessively liberal vision of the professions. The ‘Bolkenstein directive’, which aims at liberalizing the delivery of services within the EU, has drawn the attention of both social scientists and European public opinion to its potential impact on the autonomy of professions and on the guarantees offered to consumers. Attacks on professionalism have been part of a wider political movement which has spread amongst most European countries over the past two decades. Market-like or quasi-market forms of control in public professional services have been implemented in many countries including privatization of service production to varying extents, and division between politicians and executives as purchasers and professionals as providers of services. This has been especially the case in the United Kingdom, where in the 1980s and 1990s several professions have seen their power and autonomy decreasing with growing external controls aimed at making professions more ‘accountable’ for their alleged privileges.¹ In a majority of European countries, the sirens of ‘new public management’ have also seduced governments, with serious consequences for professional work and autonomy (Broadbent et al.1997; Duran 1999; Dent and Whitehead 2002). On a theoretical level, these changes have been accompanied by the success of economic critiques which have pointed out the limits of professions in economic terms. Professions are seen as excessively protectionist institutions whose effects are to limit competition, distort prices and raise unemployment by putting various restrictions on labour market entry (Freidson 2001; Garoupa 2004).

Commentators often point out that European national governments are strongly involved in deregulating professional services, but little attention has been paid to the trend of re-regulation of professions at the European level. This trend comes both from the European institutions, which have elaborated a complex and variable-geometry regulatory framework for the professions since the Treaties of Rome in 1957, and from the professions themselves who have tried to respond to the transformations of their environment through organizing themselves at a European or international level (Evetts 1998). In recent decades many professions have formed international committees or international/European federations of national professional associations, where internationalization issues are discussed and decisions made. Meta-codes of ethics, based on agreements between national associations on deontological guidelines, have also been elaborated² as well as efforts to harmonize the educational requirements for entry into professional labour markets. Professions are subject to a multi-level regulation implying at least three main layers or levels: national authorities, EU authorities and professional bodies.³

In this complexity, the concept of ‘European regulation’ seems to be problematic particularly if it were to imply an ‘explicit’ or ‘uniform’ EU project for the professions. It is problematic for three reasons. Firstly, an examination of the routes followed by different professions towards europeanization or internationalization shows great diversity ranging from proactive strategies, that anticipate the ongoing changes, to more reactive ones. The institutional environment of professions within the EU is also extremely heterogeneous whereby regulation can either apply to labour market entry, competitive practices, professional education, or all these elements together. It is argued here that architects and psychologists provide two contrasting examples in this respect. Secondly, regulation is not a ‘top-down’ process that could be received uniformly and passively by all professions. Rather it is a non-coherent and differentiated process that puts together various actors involved in a form of social exchange (professions or subgroups within professions, educational institutions, public or private employers, national governments, European policy). Thirdly, another important feature of the situation for architects and psychologists, is that they are both in process and without any settled outcome or end goal. Stable forms of regulations have not yet emerged between professions, national and European authorities. This makes the present situation, which is probably historically unique, very stimulating for social science research on the professions.

One of the immediate problems is how to define regulation. The obstacles to a sociological analysis are made more important by the fact that this notion, as many concepts in social sciences, is also a ‘folk-concept’, frequently used by professions themselves. These uses, however, seem to be strongly embedded in national contexts. In the Anglo-Saxon tradition, the term ‘regulated profession’ is often synonymous with ‘self-regulated’, which means that professional institutions are in control of the various matters that the professions have to deal with such as education, registration, professional conduct, competitive practices. The term is confusing, however, since this ‘self regulation’ is only appropriate where public authorities have delegated this capacity of regulation to professional bodies (Gilb 1966; Freidson 1994). Entirely ‘free’ or self-regulated professions are a purely abstract construct, as is the notion of the ‘free market’ in a market economy, where both are always embedded in a network of social and political institutions (Polanyi 1944; Granovetter and Swedberg 1992; Freidson 2001). Conversely, in continental countries, regulation refers more to the actions undertaken by state authorities to organize professional labour markets. Here the ministries or departments, responsible for the field of activity of a given profession, play a significant role. This does not mean that professions have no power, authority or influence on initiatives in this bargaining process, but governments remain the main source of professional legitimacy.

Another definitional is that ‘regulation’ refers to a reality that is itself very complex and cannot be reduced to a vertical mechanism of distribution of power. The success of the concept of ‘governance’ in political science and economics shows the necessity to distance oneself from analyses of regulation that would be too mechanistic or legalistic. The social order appears to be the result of a mix of various sources of power, involving organizational, local, national and international entities. The concept of ‘multilevel governance’ would certainly be more appropriate to describe the present challenges to professions, which have to deal with various sources of regulation, located both at micro and macro levels.

At the micro level, professional legitimacy increasingly has to be negotiated locally, in the work process itself. The ‘mysterious power’ of the professions is no more guaranteed and must be tested against tangible results (for example, the success of evidence-based medicine). Professionals have to have evidence that their work is substantially different from other categories of workers, in order to justify their economic rewards. The management of autonomous professional work through formal credentials before entry into employment is supplemented by recruitment with, and socialization into, certain values and attitudes according to organizational cultures. Client control is partly replaced by the demands and evaluations of customers and their sovereignty to choose and/or exit from professional firms and organizations. Thus, professional competence tends to be less formally explicit and de-contextualized, and instead more personal, implicit, individual and connected with the contexts of positions, tasks and actual performance. Through the establishment of quasi-markets and payment by results, relationships between clients and professionals have in many areas turned into customer relations, which are strongly shaped by the experiences and satisfaction of the customer in using the organization. Management control models of audit and accounting have partly replaced models of trust between managers and professionals (Dent 1995; Power 1997; Pollitt and Bouckaert 2000). Hence, control of quality by education and socialization before practice has to a considerable extent been replaced – or at least amended – by forms of control of outcomes and success rates in practice.

At the ‘macro’ level, growing international mobility, the development of cross-border practices and the internationalization of firms providing professional services – especially in fields such as law, engineering and finance, though less so in health, education and social services – threaten the market shelters which many professions had managed to secure within countries. Increasingly, these are regarded as obstacles to the mobility of labour. These issues are particularly salient in the EU, where the single market in labour as well as for goods has been on the political agenda for decades, even if its realization seems more difficult for certain categories of labour and services than for goods and industry. Professional occupations are generally more nationally regulated than other occupations, as they have a societal or state-regulated assignment – and this is particularly the case for welfare-state professions (education, health and social welfare).

Sociological concepts of regulation have tended to be about control in general, and can be contrasted with a narrow, legal definition that is as a restriction issued by governments and administrative agencies through rulemaking and supported by sanctions. Regulation may also be defined as secondary legislation implementing a primary rule of law. On the European level regulation can be defined as rule-setting and monitoring measures used by the EU to govern the political behaviour of member states in order to coordinate their policy (Jacobsson 2004: 356). In recent decades there has been a considerable expansion of soft regulation (or soft law) as guidelines in the EU, in contrast to hard regulation which includes sanctions. Soft law lacks sanctions and is not legally binding. Soft law does not presuppose formal organization as does hard law. It can be used inside organizations as well as outside, and is more suited for relations between organizations and by so-called meta-organizations such as international professional federations, where standards or formally voluntary rules are more acceptable than binding directives (Ahrne and Brunsson 2004). One particular form of soft regulation is the ‘Open Method of Coordination’ (OMC), which is an inter-government form of cooperation with supranational elements and participation of national and sub-national actors in voluntary coordination and adaptation aiming at policy convergence rather than harmonization. This has been characterized as ‘a middle ground between legal and political intervention’ by Ashiagbor (2005: 199). Convergence concerns objectives, performance and policy approaches but not the means such as institutions, rules and practiced measures (Jacobsson 2004: 357). OMC started in the European Employment Strategy and was elaborated in the Lisbon Summit in 2000. It is defined by the following key elements: guidelines for the Union; translated into national and regional policies and measures; indicators and benchmarks for comparing best practices; and periodic monitoring, evaluation and peer review. Soft law may be extended again into a more sociological concept, however, including implicit discursive mechanisms as language used, knowledge making and meaning making in general (op. cit. 356 ff). In EU contexts a common language is gradually elaborated and practised in defining and analysing problems and setting agendas. Common knowledge bases are constructed and disseminated as for example by the Eurostatistics, and there are various auditing practices carrying subtle forms of adaptation.

The concept of regulation must then be understood in a very flexible way in order to embrace the different aspects of professional regulation. In this paper we use the definition given by Lange and Regini (1989: 12), which appears precise enough to give an operational tool for research and yet is sufficiently flexible to cover a variety of situations. According to these authors, regulation is the ‘mode by which a determinate set of activities and/or relationships among actors is coordinated, the resources allocated and the related conflicts structured (that is, reconciled or prevented)’. Three dimensions are therefore essential to the concept of regulation: (i) the coordination of actors, (ii) the allocation of resources, and (iii) the structuring of conflicts. This definition has advantages in that it enables potential use of the concept of regulation in countries where ‘regulated professions’ do not exist as such and also it widens the scope of the concept by taking into account dimensions that are not always considered in classical analyses of professional regulation. It extends the analysis well beyond the legal frame-work: thus any kind of relationship between a ‘principal and an ‘agent’ can here imply a situation of regulation.

One of the most important objectives of the EU since the Treaty of Rome in 1957 has been to promote the freedom of movement and settlement of professionals within Europe.⁴ Yet workers’ mobility within the EU remains very weak. In 2002, about 1.5 percent of EU-25 citizens lived and worked in a different Member State from their country of origin – a proportion that has hardly changed for the last 30 years (Eurostat). Language is one of the most important barriers to geographical mobility; even though most EU citizens speak at least one other language than their mother tongue, this hides important differences between Member States. Some 70 percent of UK citizens speak only one language, while in Denmark, Sweden, and The Netherlands more than 87 percent of the population speak at least one other language. English is spoken by some 34 percent of EU citizens.

Various legislation has framed the geographical mobility of labour within the EU. In the early days of the European single market in 1960, the European Commission set up a Department for the Liberal Professions (DLP) headed by J.-P. de Crayencour, in charge of the mutual recognition of professional standards and of the mobility of professionals. At first, the dominant approach was to map out all the existing diplomas and qualifications for a certain number of professions, mainly in the Health sector. This gave rise to eight sectoral directives (‘vertical directive’) adopted between 1975 and 1985 for eight professions (doctors, nurses, midwives, veterinarians, dentists, pharmacists, architects and lawyers). These directives provided for automatic recognition of professional qualifications and introduced a minimal harmonization of curricula across Europe. Each country established a list of the formal qualifications giving access to practice in a given profession; the other member countries were required to accept these people as fully qualified for practice in their country. At the European level, efforts were also made to harmonize the content of courses, duration of training and routes to independent professional practice (duration and content of specialization, supervised practice).

It soon appeared, however, that the ‘profession by profession’ approach had severe limitations, for two reasons. Firstly, the inventory of all the existing qualifications for a given profession was very time-consuming and a source of repeated disputes and disagreements between countries. The contents of courses and the jurisdictions of the various professions were generally so diverse across Europe that the elaboration of a sectoral directive was a long and painful process.⁵ In some cases, countries even had to create new professions or to redefine the content of the existing ones in order to comply with the EU legislation. This was the case in Italy, where the previously unified professions of dentistry and medicine had to be separated more clearly in order to allow practice for foreign-trained dentists (Orzack 1981). Secondly, the idea of harmonizing the contents of the curriculum is partly at odds with another basic principle of the EU, which provides for non-intervention of European authorities in education and more generally in cultural matters, which remain under states’ jurisdiction. The nature of the professions therefore appears as a serious obstacle to their harmonization in Europe, depending on whether they are primarily considered as cultural or as economic entities.

In the mid-1980s, confronted by the demands of an increasing number of professions which claimed to have their own sectoral directive (engineers, optometrists, accountants, psychologists), the European Commission developed a different approach to professional cross-border mobility. This resulted in the 1989 EU General System Directive (Directive 89/48/EC) which stated that any person having followed more than three years of higher education in a recognized institution must have their qualification recognized across Europe. However, the directive did not systematically give access to professional practice for individual candidates. The full recognition of professional competence was made conditional on a linguistic or aptitude test or a period of supervised practice, which could last up to three years. This directive implied few regulations at the European level, and the final decision came under the national ‘competent authority’ in charge of regulation in the host country. The example of European psychologists wishing to practice in the UK illustrates the limitations that still remain regarding professional mobility in Europe: only a small number of those who applied for equivalence at the British Psychological Society (BPS) were immediately recognized as fully qualified by the BPS (less than 3 percent of total applications).⁶ Most of the applicants had to write an essay on a relevant professional topic, develop a research project or obtain supervised experience in the UK before obtaining full equivalence.

The approach currently developed by EU authorities regarding cross-border professional mobility is somewhat different from the two preceding ones, in the sense that it displaces the regulatory work from public authorities (either at European or National level) to supranational private associations. On September 2005, a new Directive on the recognition of professional qualifications was adopted by the European Parliament (European Parliament directive 2005/36). Article 15 provides the possibility for ‘representative professional associations’ to present ‘platforms’ or ‘minimal requirements’ to the European Commission, which would lead to the automatic recognition of professional qualifications without any compensation measures as required in the General System Directive (aptitude test, adaptation period):

‘In order to promote the free movement of professionals, while ensuring an adequate level of qualification, various professional associations and organizations or Member States should be able to propose common platforms at European level. This Directive should take account, under certain conditions, in compliance with the competence of Member States to decide the qualifications required for the pursuit of professions in their territory as well as the contents and the organization of their systems of education and professional training and in compliance with Community law, and in particular Community law on competition, of those initiatives, while promoting, in this context, a more automatic character of recognition under the general system. Professional associations which are in a position to submit common platforms should be representative at national and European level’ (European Commission Directive 2005/36, art. 16).

Such measures would allow greater coordination of the mutual recognition of qualifications across countries. ‘Platforms’ are defined as ‘a set of criteria of professional qualifications which attest to a sufficient level of competence for the pursuit of a given profession and on the basis of which those associations accredit the qualifications obtained in the Member States’ (Directive 2005/36, art. 15). Once accepted by the Commission, the platform will serve as a benchmark for professionals wishing to practice in another EU country: if they fulfil the requirements of the platform, they should not be asked to take any additional requirements. However, these rules do not completely replace the former ones: a qualified professional who would not satisfy the requirements of a professional platform could still apply for practice, but might be required to comply with compensatory measures. It must also be noted that national authorities are in no way required to adapt their national legislation or educational framework to the content of the platforms which are, on the contrary, devices which aim to overcome the differences between various national training systems. Some professions, who failed to gain a sectoral directive in the 1970s or 1980s, appear to have played a significant role in the adoption of this new framework, especially optometrists and psychologists but also scientific professions like chemists, biologists or engineers. Each of these groups had developed European diplomas even before the proposal of a reform of the recognition system was made, in 2001. In Table 1 aspects of the three different types of regulation are listed with occupations as examples.

In parallel, attempts have been made to harmonize the structures of higher education systems within Europe, in order to create a ‘European Higher Education Area’, likely to compete with other geographical areas and to attract students at international level. The signature of the Sorbonne declaration in 1998 by four countries,⁷ and of the Bologna declaration one year later (signed by 29 countries), have laid the basis for a deep reform in the architecture of the European higher education systems. In particular this involved that each country would implement a system of academic degrees easy to read and compare, based essentially on two cycles: a first cycle lasting at least three years (Bachelor) and a second cycle of two years (Master). The mutual recognition of study programmes would be made easier by the adoption of the ECTS structure (European Credit Transfer System), which attaches credits to the various components of the programme.

One criticism often made by professional associations to the Bologna process is that it has strong limitations for the mutual recognition of professional education, which frequently involves more continuous and integrated curricula which do not necessarily fit with the ‘3 + 2’ structure. They also involve periods of supervised practice that are not taken into account into the ECTS system. As pointed out by Lunt (2005: 91) ‘in order to lead to meaningful credit accumulation in higher education leading to professional qualifications, there will need to be some agreement on a modular or equivalent structure. ECTS has been successful to an extent with more academically focused study; the challenge will be to extend its use to more professionally oriented qualifications across European countries’. Architects are also worried that the question of professional practical training was not raised in Bologna: ‘Bologna appears to be only interested in its field of reference operating smoothly and not in specific problems of training courses. Nevertheless, it is an opportunity to ask questions about the place of practical training in the architects’ training system. In this respect, it is clear that the European system, five-year academic training should be completed by gaining practical experience supervised and validated within a professional framework following specific procedures’ (ACE 2003: 2)

Another fear is that the implementation of the ‘3 + 2’ structure might lower the level of qualification required for entry into professional practice. The signatories of the Bologna declaration are committed to a criterion of employability at the end of the first cycle, which is strongly criticized by professional bodies on the motive that this could create a category of under-qualified professionals, for which jobs simply do not exist (what job could be found for a ‘bachelor’ in architecture, medicine or psychology in his field of specialization?). This is clearly expressed in the case of architecture by the ACE (Architects’ Council of Europe):

Unlike architects, psychologists are not covered by a sectoral directive, though EFPA (European Federation of Psychologists’ Association) struggled for one in the 1980s and 1990s (Lunt 1996, 1999). The failure at that time is probably due to the fact that the European Commission had never judged psychological issues to be important enough to need any kind of regulation. The great heterogeneity of professional education in psychology in Europe, the small size and power of the profession and its lack of a clear jurisdiction (which covers such diverse fields as work, mental health, education and psychotherapy) might also explain the difficulties of the profession to be fully recognized. Yet, by the time the General Directive was adopted (1989), psychologists had managed to obtain some kind of regulation within European states (see Table 2). In most countries, the use of the title had been protected in the 1980s and 1990s and some fields of practice had also been regulated (like the use of psychological tests or a specific regulation for psychotherapy). The duration of the curriculum required to obtain the title, or to have entry into certain professional settings, varies between four years (The Netherlands) to eight years (Nordic countries).

Like many other professions, psychologists gradually organized at the European level, in the context of the implementation of a common internal market within the EU. The European Federation of Professional Psychologists’ Association (EFPPA) was founded in Germany in 1981, by representatives of 12 national psychology associations. Nordic countries, the United Kingdom, The Netherlands, and Germany were the originators of the EFPPA project. The Federation provides a forum for European cooperation in a wide range of fields of academic training, psychology practice and research. There are now 32 member associations of EFPA (which replaced EFPPA – see next paragraph) representing about 200,000 psychologists. Some non-EU countries are also represented, such as Croatia, Switzerland, and Turkey. Membership is open to the national psychology association of all European countries and only one member association per country.

The member organizations of EFPA are concerned with promoting and improving psychology as a profession, and as a discipline, in applied settings and with emphasis on the training and research associated with such practice. The psychologists in the member associations include practitioners as well as academic and research psychologists since the year 2001, when EFPPA was transformed into EFPA (European Federation of Psychologists’ association). The inclusion of academics was justified in these terms:

Yet scientific issues have not really been discussed within EFPA so far, since these matters are discussed in other European associations such as EAWOP (European Association of Work and Organizational Psychology) or EAESP (European Association of Experimental Social Psychology, founded in 1966). The objectives of EFPA remain focused on professional and training issues. The functions of EFPA are defined as follows:

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  ‘to promote communication and co-operation between member associations in Europe, and to contribute to their development;

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  to further the establishment of ethical codes of practice for psychologists, and to promote the application of psychology as a means of improving the well-being of those to whom psychologists offer services;

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  to promote the furtherance of psychology and its application, with particular reference to professional training and the professional status of psychologists;

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  to support the interests of psychology and its application in relation to any European or international organizations concerned with specifying requirements for the professional practice of psychology;

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  to support member associations in promoting the interests of psychology within their own countries;

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  to facilitate contacts with international bodies of psychology; and

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  to promote the development of professional psychology in all its different areas and subject matters and, as appropriate, to assist in the co-ordination of this activity’ (European Federation of Professional Psychologists Association 1995b: 2).

The limitations of the general directives system, the need for a common goal within EFPA and the desire to delineate more clearly the jurisdiction of psychology can explain the attempts to build a ‘European diploma in psychology’ since the beginning of the 1990s. Yet, paradoxically, geographical mobility is very weak amongst practitioners. According to a recent survey (INSEE 2002), the number of foreign psychologists working in France is estimated at about 2 percent (600 practitioners) of the total number of practitioners in France (estimated at 30,000). In the UK, the proportion is higher, but in 2005 only a minority of foreign applicants came from EU countries (22 percent) with a majority coming from Anglophone countries located either in Australia/Oceania/Asia (35 percent), Africa (28 percent) or North America (12 percent). Apart from language, the strong links of psychology with nationally framed welfare state organizations, the variety of the epistemological foundations of the discipline in Europe and the gender dimension (80–90 percent of psychologists are women), are probably the main obstacles to geographical mobility. Two epistemological models can be distinguished within the EU. In the first group, mainly formed of Mediterranean and Eastern Europe countries (Italy, Greece, Portugal, France, Switzerland, Hungary, Poland), psychology is linked with psychotherapy, with strong roots in psychoanalysis. In those countries, the status of the profession is generally low with little regulation of labour market entry. The links with academia are also generally weak. A second group of countries (UK, Germany, The Netherlands, Spain, Northern countries) is closer to the ‘Boulder model’, which organized the profession of clinical psychology in the United States around the model of the ‘scientist-practitioner’ (Boulder Conference, 1947). In this second group of countries, the status of the profession is higher, and the links with academia stronger. Psychology is defined as a ‘scientific applied profession’ rather than a clinical profession. These divergences show that there is disagreement about the definition of the field of psychology itself (Lunt and Poortinga 1996), which is an obstacle for the development of minimal European standards for education, training and practice.

Regarding EU regulations, psychology as a profession has not been addressed beyond the general directive on three years of higher education. What is considered a most important step for the profession is the recent initiative regarding the common platforms (see above). This new directive allowed EFPA to make in 2005 a direct proposal to the European Commission on a European standard concerning the education and training of psychologists in Europe (EuroPsy). A formal proposal was presented to the European Commission, which established a Committee to consider the proposal. This Committee consists of representatives of the European Commission and the 25-EU Member States. The Committee will invite an expert group on psychology to consider whether the proposal can be accepted.

The framework of the EuroPsy accepted at the EFPA General Assembly in London in 2001 consists of a Master examination or equivalent level of university training in psychology, for the total duration of six years, and of one year of supervised practice included in or in addition to the University degree.⁸ The Europsy project has developed in parallel, but separately from the initiatives taken by universities to fit into the ‘3 + 2+3’ system implied by the Bologna declaration. It is likely that the harmonization of the curricula within Europe will facilitate the implementation of Europsy, especially for the mutual recognition of Bachelor level, but it will in no way replace the role of professional bodies for entry into professional practice and is unable to substitute to the sectoral directives or to such initiatives as Europsy. Indeed, Europsy includes periods of professional exercise and a final year of supervised practice (3 + 2+1), whose completion is submitted to the agreement of professional bodies.

The Architects Council of Europe (ACE) is the organization on the European level representing national member organizations. It was founded in 1990 and consists of the professional representative organizations of all 25 European Union member states and the three accession states and Switzerland and Norway, thus representing more than 450,000 architects in Europe. The official objectives of ACE are ‘to promote architecture in Europe, maintain quality of architecture, bring together and promote architects in Europe, support the independence of architects and ensure the best education for architects’.⁹

In recent years, ACE has been mainly involved in the elaboration of deontological guidelines for the profession in Europe. A reference document was adopted by the General Assembly of the ACE in Luxembourg in November 2005. This so-called deontological code was supposed ‘not be legally binding unless it is made binding either by the European Union or National legislation or by contract between a provider of architectural services and a client or other user or otherwise as a matter of public or private law’ (ACE 2005a: 1). In order to create a consensus among European architects, these deontological principles remain very general. Firstly, they insist on the necessity to possess a solid theoretical and scientific background in order to practice architecture and that ‘these standards must be founded on a minimum period of five years full-time architectural education at university level (or equivalent), followed by a minimum of two years full time (or equivalent) professional practice experience’ (ACE 2005a: 2).

Secondly, the code concerns the public interest where providers should ‘respect and help to conserve and develop the system of values and the nature and cultural heritage of the community’, not ‘represent themselves or their professional services in a false or deceptive manner’, avoid ‘situations incompatible with their professional obligations and not support statements contrary to their own knowledge or promote any criminal or unethical conducts’ (ACE 2005a: 3). Thirdly, the code concerns the client: ‘All providers of architectural services owe their clients duties to carry out their work or services faithfully, conscientiously, competently, in a professional manner, and with independence, impartiality and integrity using due care, skill and diligence’, ‘respect the needs and requirements expressed by their client or any potential user’, ‘only undertake professional work where they can demonstrate that they possess adequate knowledge and abilities’, ‘be remunerated solely by the fees and the benefits specified in the relevant contract for services or of employment’ (ACE 2005a: 3–4). Fourthly, the code concerns obligations in the interests of the profession: all architects must uphold the ‘integrity and dignity of the profession’ and also ‘acknowledge the contribution made to their work or services by others such as, for example, staff, the client, urban planners, landscape architects, other architects, multi-disciplinary professional firms or companies, artists, interior designers, structural and technical services engineers, construction economists, specialist contractors, contractors and others in the project team’ (ACE 2005a: 5).

The need to make more explicit the specific values defended by the architectural profession in Europe, and to display them in deontological guidelines, has been partly guided by the fear that architecture be reduced to a mere ‘commercial’ profession in the European context of liberalization of services (see next section).

During recent years, the European Commission has been placing increased emphasis on the issue of services in the internal market. This resulted in a directive proposal in January 2004 which aimed to remove legal and administrative barriers to the development of service activities between Member States (Services in Internal Market – SIM directive). ‘Services’ are defined as being ‘any self-employed economic activity, as referred to in Article 50 of the Treaty, consisting in the provision of a service for consideration’ (European Commission 2004: 45). This definition clearly includes the provision of architectural services and the new directive is therefore likely to threaten the status quo for the mobility of architects in the 1985 sectoral directive, which provides for automatic recognition of qualifications within the EU.¹⁰ Yet, the sectoral directive only concerns formal access to the profession (especially title), not the delivery of architectural services themselves. If certain categories of services have been excluded from the scope of the directive – especially those provided directly by public authorities in the social, cultural or educational areas – this is not the case with architectural services, which are explicitly designated as a target of the directive.

In November 2005 ACE stated a political agenda and strategic objectives for the period 2006–2008. There is strong criticism of the ‘services directive’ and the policy which ACE claims considers architecture ‘to be like any service sector, where insufficient regard is taken on the impact on the built environment and the wellbeing of citizens’ (ACE 2005b: 3). Also criticized is the deregulation and increased competitiveness where simplification is said to be assimilated in deregulation. There is supposed to be a need for significant changes in attitudes concerning cultural diversity in Europe, ensuring sustainable quality of the living environment, and adequate planning policies. Thus, ACE is promoting the public interests of architecture, which is said to go ‘way beyond the pure concept of consumerism that currently pervades EU policy’ (ACE 2005b: 6).

Paradoxically, although strongly regulated within states, architecture is already one of the most mobile of the liberal professions when it comes to cross-border provision of services. According to a recent survey conducted by the Ordre des architectes, some 10 percent of French architects had delivered cross-border services in 2004 (Ordre des architectes 2005). Recent statistics also show that 5.3 percent of architects working permanently in France did not have French nationality (INSEE 2002), a proportion three times higher than for psychologists. Different factors explain the relatively high internationalization of architectural services. Firstly, independent practice remains dominant: according to the Ordre des architectes (2005), 60 percent of architects in France worked independently in 2004.¹¹ But this kind of practice is declining with more and more architects being salaried in architectural firms which are more likely to win international contracts. Architects also often deal with organizational clients – not individuals – who are likely to have activities located in various countries. Secondly, language does not appear a serious barrier to cross-border practice and the reputation of certain architects goes well beyond the frontiers of a country. Lastly, architects are mainly men (82 percent) and surveys show that women are less internationally mobile than men, even in highly skilled professions,¹² for reasons that have to do with the traditional role divisions between men and women in the family and in society.

Some factors, however, might constitute important barriers to the mobility of architects in Europe. These include especially aesthetic dimensions, given the variety of housing and building techniques in European countries. This has been especially the case since the revival of regional architectural styles in the 1970s in most European countries, which has shown that architecture is not only a technique but also rooted in cultural dimensions. This phenomenon could, however, be counterbalanced by other tendencies leading to a certain homogenization of architectural styles in Europe such as the quest for more sustainable housing and the diffusion of international styles of architecture popularized by renowned architects. It could also be argued that a variety of architectural styles has always existed within the same country (between regions) without limiting the mobility of architects. A more serious obstacle to professional mobility in Europe has been pointed out recently by the ACE (2006a, b) during its convention held in Brussels on the theme: ‘Architects in the European Context’. Participants insisted that the rules of competition for access to public projects differed so much from one national administration to another that it was often difficult for a foreign architect to be selected for a project.

Architects and psychologists provide two contrasting examples of Europeanization, demonstrating differences as well as similarities. Since the mid-1990s, psychologists have had a very proactive strategy trying to develop a ‘professional project’ at the European level. This project may partly be explained by the lack of success of professionalization of psychology within states encouraging some professional leaders to move the process from national to the supranational level. Several of the main elements of a professional project, as described by Larson Sarfatti (1977), are combined in the Europsy project described above:

• 1.

  Standardization of knowledge and professional training. Europsy is characterized by its high degree of formalization. It has been elaborated by a group of ‘experts’, specialized in work and educational psychology. It is based upon outcome-based assessments of professional competencies rather than reliance only on academic curricula. The objective of its initiators, as pointed out by a member of the BPS, was to extend the British NVQs’ (National Vocational Qualifications) approach to expert activities and at an international scale:

At the beginning, the Europsy project was not carried out by EFPA but by a small group of academics (10 professors of psychology) who wondered about the competences required for a good psychologist, partly for professional and partly for scientific reasons:

These efforts have put psychology in a very good position in terms of EU authorities, which were simultaneously promoting a ‘competence approach’ emphasizing transparency and promoting competence evaluation across a wide range of contexts and also proposing an innovative framework. In order to develop their project, the initiators of the Europsy Project received financial support from the EU through Leonardo funding.

• 1.

  Development of links with academia. Another strategy followed by EFPA for a number of years has been to gain credibility through presenting itself as a mix of a scientific and professional association. EFPA now organizes scientific congresses and awards scientific prizes to distinguished scholars; an academic journal (The European Psychologist) was also launched in 1996. This strategy aims to fill the gap between science and practice, which is often very important in psychology.¹³

• 2.

  Creation of market shelters within the EU. It is difficult for psychology to clearly delineate its mandate and jurisdiction, which is potentially unlimited when psychology is defined as a general ‘science of human behaviour’. The division of the profession into several and weakly related fields (clinical, health-care, educational, organizational, work) is also a strong obstacle to its external visibility and hampered its full development in many countries. In order to render psychologists’ professional project more visible at the European level, EFPA has focused more particularly on specific dimensions of psychologists’ work: for example the field of mental health and ‘crisis and disaster psychology’, which is considered to be a major political and social issue in the post-September 11th world. In 2003, EFPA was granted consultative and participatory status as a Non Governmental Organization (NGO) in relation to the Council of Europe.

Issues that are important for the future of the EU are also emphasized by psychologists in order to justify the importance of EU legislation specifically related to their profession: for example, ageing populations, environmental protection, drug and alcohol abuse, unemployment. Psychological expertise is required in specific fields like ‘crisis and disaster’ or ‘traffic psychology’ (Peiro and Lunt 2002). According to Risser (1998) there were 5,000 job opportunities for psychologists in Europe in the areas of driver assessment, selection and improvement. But the most important domain remains mental health, even if psychologists have many competitors in this field (psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, psychiatrists). As pointed out by the Secretary General of EFPA:Despite these attempts to professionalize psychology at the EU level, strong obstacles remain. The first one is that national professional associations are generally not interested in European issues, as is indicated by the absence of such matters in national journals and on professional associations’ websites. There seems also to be an important gap between the interests of representatives and the rank and file practitioners who remain focused on national regulatory issues. Furthermore, international work is sometimes more of an individual project for particularly committed members. In France, for example, it is the same person who has represented the SFP (Société française de psychologie) for many years at EFPA. He has almost no influence at national level as he himself points out:The same lack of interest on European issues seem to prevail within the BPS (British Psychological Society), as pointed out by the former president of EFPA (also former president of BPS):People involved in European professional federations appear to have a particular ‘profile’, somewhat different from that of executives of national professional associations: they are much more internationally minded and often have a critical view of the work carried out by national professional associations. They are also committed to Europe in general and their professional careers are marked by international mobility. In contrast, within national professional bodies, EU legislation is perceived as a very slow process with low impact on the profession. European institutions are perceived as too bureaucratic and European professional federations continue to have the image of bodies dedicated to scientific congresses or dealing with unimportant matters. This is especially true in the case of psychology where practitioners are not usually internationally minded, because of the low international mobility in the profession, except in some countries (Nordic countries):This is confirmed by the research conducted by Lane et al. (2004) who in a survey found that only 8.7 percent of the British psychologists and 5.3 percent of the German psychologists estimated that European Policies might be a factor of change in their profession in the future (in comparison, the average response in the four professions investigated was respectively 30.7 percent in the case of Britain and 17.1 percent in the case of Germany).

The situation of architecture is different. Rank and file practitioners are more directly concerned by EU issues firstly because international mobility is stronger in this profession than in psychology, and secondly because the liberalization of services within the EU might have immediate and strong impact on professional activities, especially in terms of competition. For example, one of the objectives of the ‘services directive’ is to eliminate fixed or recommended prices that are supposed to restrict competition. According to many architects this would lead to a ‘price dumping’ that could have detrimental effects on the overall quality of the built environment (safety, artistic or aesthetic value …). As pointed out by the Architect's council of Europe: ‘Given the detrimental effect of ‘price dumping’ on the overall quality of the delivery of architectural services and hence on the quality of the built environment, the ACE urges the EU Member States to fight ‘price dumping’ in the sector of architectural services, by establishing legal instruments that guarantee that contract award decisions are not based on price only but on quality based criteria’ (ACE 2005c: 1).

The position of architects’ associations (both at national and European levels) therefore appears much more ‘defensive’ than that of psychologists. Architects are already regulated at European level by the 1985 sectoral directive and would have much to lose if the services directive was applied to their sector. As yet, architectural services have not been considered as one of the ‘public interest services’ which are excluded from the scope of the directive on the basis of their non-economic character or their role in social cohesion in Europe. In the first reading of the services directive, the European Parliament excluded from the scope of the directive ‘public interest services’ such as public and private healthcare and social services (social housing, childcare and family services), industries covered by legislation specific to their sector (e.g., financial services, electronic communications services and networks, and transport) or professions and activities linked to the exercise of public authority (e.g., notaries and tax services). ACE considers that ‘all sorts of professions that do not have a greater impact on the public good than the architectural profession are excluded’ and that consequently ‘the ACE is compelled to call for the exclusion of architectural services too’ (ACE 2006a: 1).

In order to justify their exceptionality, European architects emphasize the importance of the mandate they fulfil, trying to extend it beyond the traditional dimensions promoted at national levels. Their expertise would be in harmony with certain important goals followed by EU authorities as pointed out by ACE: ‘the quality of the built environment impacts on productivity, competitiveness and well-being. Furthermore, many of the public health and safety factors that impact on society arise from the way in which the built environment is conceived’ (ACE 2005d: 3). There is therefore a ‘strategic’ use of the political goals followed by EU authorities in order to justify the specific position of architecture regarding economic competition. Furthermore an association comprising private, governmental and professional actors, the European Forum for Architectural Policies (EFAP), was set up in 2000 in order to think about the role of architects and architectural policies in the European project. To date, it has produced a Council resolution on architectural quality in urban and rural environments, adopted in 2002 (Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication 2002).

The case of psychology in Europe demonstrates most elements of a professional project, proactively emphasizing education, research and academic status but also referring to new tasks in an international market. The case of architecture demonstrates an established occupation defending the market and emphasizing the social status and the ubiquitous and general role of architecture – not least in much elaborated deontological guidelines. Both cases illustrate the importance of supranational or meta-organizations and the national back up and commitment of particular actors working on international issues, though there is a vast difference in the international markets to the advantage of architecture.

These two cases also demonstrate the general changes regarding professional regulation concerning education and services, respectively, at the EU level from 1960s onwards. There has been an obvious shift from ‘hard’ regulation (laws, and directives) to more ‘soft’ regulation (recommendations, and intergovernmental guidelines) allowing more room for professional actors to organize themselves and define their own rules of mobility.¹⁵ The documented work from both cases, and other issues on the EU level, further demonstrate the construction and practice of a European and an international discourse, which may in time provide common definitions of problems and solutions, and active participation in the soft re-regulating development of professional occupations concerning the coordination of actors, the allocation of resources and the structuring of conflicts. This soft re-regulation is characterized by allowing more initiatives from below and within national and supranational associations, which on the whole makes the policies more contextually determined compared to the external directives from above in the 1980s. There is, however, still an abyss between the internationally committed representatives and the ordinary members of national professional associations.

Thomas Le Bianic is Associate Professor in Sociology at the Université Paris-Dauphine France. His main research areas include the sociology of professions, sociology of work and the analysis of public policies. He has recently conducted research on the international mobility of qualified work and the regulation of professional groups at supranational level. His most recent publications include: Action publique et légitimité professionnelle, with Antoine Vion (LGDJ, Paris, 2008) and ‘Les professions face à l'Europe: les psychologues’ in Didier Demazière and Charles Gadéa: Sociologie des groupes professionnels, Paris in 2008.

Lennart G. Svensson is Professor at the Department of Sociology, University of Gothenburg, Sweden. His main research is the sociology of education, occupations, professions and the sociology of work including: studies on professional competence at work and studies on professional conditions and internationalisation and occupational status. His recent international publications include: ‘New professionalism, trust and competence: some conceptual remarks and empirical data’, Current Sociology, Vol. 54 in 2006 and ‘Professions: continental European and Anglo-American approaches’ (Guest Editor for Knowledge, Work & Society, Vol. 2, No. 2, in 2004).