Committee Reports > List of Committees > Joint > 1978 > Committee on the Secondary Legislation of the European Communities > Report No. 02 - Right of Establishment and Freedom to provide services by Dental Surgeons

REPORT

Proposals Examined

1. The Joint Committee has examined the following proposals which are intended to facilitate dental surgeons who are nationals of a Member State in exercising their rights under the Treaty of Rome to take up employment or set up in practice in other Member States or to provide professional services in a Member State other than the one in which they are established:—

Two revised draft Council Directives concerning the right of establishment and the provision of services for the activities of dental surgeons [R/2196/74].

Draft Council Decisions

—setting up an Advisory Committee on the Training of Dental Surgeons.

—amending Decision 75/365/EEC setting up a Committee of Senior Officials on Public Health [R/103/77].

2. The draft Directives replace three earlier draft Directives which were withdrawn when certain of their provisions were rendered superfluous by the judgments of the Court of Justice in the Reyners (Case 2/74 [1974] ECR 631) and Van Binsbergen (Case 33/74 [1974] ECR 1299) cases. The effect of these judgments is referred to in the thirty-fifth report of the Joint Committee’s predecessor (Prl. 5591).

Scope of Proposals

3. One draft Directive would require each Member State to recognise the formal qualifications in dentistry or specialised dentistry awarded in other Member States. These qualifications are listed in the draft Directive.

4. In relation to dentists exercising the right of establishment there are provisions in the draft Directive dealing with the furnishing of evidence of character or health where such are required of nationals of the host Member State. There are also provisions dealing with the furnishing of information regarding professional misconduct or criminal offences.

5. Dentists from other Member States entering the host country in order to provide professional services there temporarily would be exempt from the necessity of registering with a local professional body. They would, however, be required to give prior notice to the competent authority of the host Member State and to furnish evidence of professional qualifications. In cases of urgency, notice could be given after the provision of the services.

6. There are also provisions, which relate both to the right of establisment and the freedom to provide services, dealing with the use of the professional title, the provision of information on health and social security laws and on professional ethics and the acquisition of linguistic knowledge.

7. The second draft Directive seeks to lay down minimum requirements for the training of dentists and specialists in dental surgery and specifies the criteria for such training so as to ensure broad uniformity throughout the Community.

8. The draft Decisions propose respectively to set up an Advisory Committee on Training and to give to an existing Committee on Public Health the same function in relation to dental surgeons as it already exercises in relation to doctors. The former, which would be composed of experts drawn from each Member State, would keep the training of dental surgeons under review and the latter, which is composed of officials from each Member State, would identify difficulties in implementing the Directives. Both would be able to suggest amendments to the Directives within their respective areas of responsibility.

Consideration by Council Working Party

9. The proposals have been under consideration by a Council Working Party which met regularly during the period December, 1976 to June, 1977. Two of the main problems encountered by the Working Party were (a) the fact that in Italy dentistry is not a separate profession but is practised by medical practitioners and (b) the difficulty Belgium has in accepting a definition of the field of activities of dentists.

10. The Joint Committee understands that the Italian problem has been solved as the Italian Government has agreed to set up an Italian school of dentistry and make provision for the award of dental qualifications or diplomas. Transitional arrangements for Italian doctors practising dentistry at present and Italian medical students intending to practise dentistry have been agreed upon.

11. With the exception of the Belgium delegation the Working Party is agreed that the activities of dental surgeons should be defined as “involving the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of abnormalities of the teeth and diseases of the teeth, mouth, jaws and associated tissues”. The Belgian delegation does not want the activities defined at all and in any event thinks that the proposed definition is too wide. The Belgian difficulty arises from the fact that in Belgium dentistry is practised by (a) stomatologists, who are medical specialists catering for various mouth and jaw conditions but who do not work on teeth, and (b) dentists who are by law the only people entitled to do such work on teeth as extractions, fillings, dentures etc. This problem has not been resolved and the Joint Committee understands that it has been referred to COREPER.

Implications for Ireland

12. Under the proposed co-ordination Directive the evidence of specialist qualification required in the case of Ireland would be a “certificate of specialist dentist issued by the competent authority recognised for this purpose by the Minister for Health”. The register maintained under the Dentists Act, 1928 does not distinguish between specialist and other dentists nor does the Act contain provision for specialist registration. While such registration is not mandatory under the proposed Directives, it may well be the only feasible way of giving effect to the proposals if they are adopted.

13. Neither the Department of Health nor the Irish Dental Association anticipates that the adoption of the proposals will result in any great movement of dentists between Ireland and the Continent. There is already a certain emigration of dental graduates to the United Kingdom and it is not thought that this will change significantly.

Views of the Joint Committee

14. In the Joint Committee’s view the proposals seek in a reasonable way to enable dentists effectively to exercise the rights they enjoy under the Treaty of Rome. They are broadly similar to the Doctors’ Directives which have already been implemented in this country.

15. Adoption of the proposals would certainly necessitate amending the Dentists Act, 1928. In the Joint Committee’s opinion this should be done by a Bill which can be considered by both Houses and not by regulations made under the European Communities Act, 1972. The Joint Committee understands that the period for implementation of the Directives by the Member States is likely to be eighteen months and not one year as originally proposed by the Commission. This should give ample time for the preparation of a Bill.

Acknowledgement

16. The Joint Committee wishes to record its appreciation of the considerable assistance it received from the Irish Dental Association in considering these proposals.

(Signed) MARK CLINTON,

Chairman of the Joint Committee.

1 February, 1978.