AS316 - LIBERALIZATION OF PROFESSIONAL SERVICES
PRESS RELEASE
PRESS RELEASE
Antitrust says professionals enjoy too many privileges, urgent reform required.
Eliminate scale fees and regulatory curbs. The four points of a possible reform.
Report on the sector sent to Parliament and the Government
The reform of the professions must no longer be delayed, especially in the light of promptings by international entities. This was the message of the Italian Competition Authority in a note sent to Parliament and the Government along with its Report on the sector.
The Report, which was approved at the meeting of 16 November 2005, is the result of two years’ work during which the Authority requested meetings representatives of a number of Professional Orders to analyse the restrictions on competition which still characterize the sector. What emerged was that, in many cases, professionals are willing to change rules considered obsolete whereas legislators tend to hold on to conservative positions.
The document will be examined at the meeting of EU Member States’ competition authority experts to be held on 22 November next, and it is hoped that the reform will be drafted with the Authority’s involvement. All the interested parties will have to make an effort at dialogue. But if the discussions do not lead to satisfactory results, the Authority may consider the option, where competition is threatened, of using its powers of investigation under the law and, given the primacy of EU law, not to apply national Italian regulations.
In the Report, the Authority identifies four critical areas which are impeding competition (role of the orders, compulsory tariffs, limitations on advertising, excessive regulation) and suggests possible corrective measures.
ORDERS AND PROFESSIONAL CODES
The Authority proposes a profound rethinking as to the role of the Orders, whose task must be to promote training (so as to ensure the updating of professionals to the benefit of users) and to oversee the correct behaviour of their members. This means it is necessary to oppose the tendency to insert into professional codes aspects of the exercise of professions which are decidedly regulatory in nature and have nothing to do with ethical questions.
SCALE FEES
Predetermined obligatory tariffs must be eliminated. This is a key step in reforming the professions so as to allow competition, which will have beneficial effects in the ongoing improvement of professional services. The minimum quality of professional service is guaranteed by the rules for entry to the professions while fixed fees are neither a reference parameter for users nor a valid incentive for the professionals. The result is that the cost of professional services borne by Italian businesses are significantly higher than those for other industrial factors even when they are subject to regulation.
ADVERTISING
In the Authority’s opinion, it is necessary to introduce the principle of free use of advertising media and content because advertising represents a fundamental competitive tool. Limitations on advertising content may be justified only in special cases. For example, one might contemplate forms of regulation of advertising so as to avoid the creation of artificial needs.
REGULATORY IMPEDIMENTS
In Italy there is often a disproportionate degree of regulation which confers unjustified privileges on professionals: thus, access to the market is limited and its overall efficiency is reduced, to the detriment of consumers. Hence, certain reserved activities should be eliminated, such as the certification of certain notarial documents or the sale of over-the-counter medicines, and the system of access to reserved professional activities needs to be rethought. Restrictions on the exercise of professions by corporations of professionals must be eliminated and requests for regulation on the part of unprotected professions must be resisted.
Rome, 19 November 2005