The Ministry of Finance has lifted all unjustified restrictions on the entry and practice of 136 professions, according to an announcement.
Moreover, the Bill abolishes as of 2 July 2011, four months after it was passed, all types of restrictions that:
Moreover, the Bill abolishes as of 2 July 2011, four months after it was passed, all types of restrictions that:
- Restrict the number of people that can enter a profession;
- Require that a license to exercise a profession must be provided following an assessment of genuine need;
- Set geographic or territorial limits on the practice of a profession;
- Require that there is a minimum distance between practitioners;
- Impose constraints the establishment of further facilities by the same person;
- Restrict the distribution of goods from certain types of professional establishments;
- Restrict the practice of a profession by a certain types of legal entity;
- Impose constraints on equity participation based on criteria relating to the professional status of the participants;
- Set obligatory minimum prices;
- Require that the practitioner offers other specific services together with his/her services.
All the above-mentioned restrictions are automatically lifted after July 2 2011, without any further administrative action.
A Presidential Decree is required in order to maintain one or more of the above restrictions for a profession and only if compelling evidence is provided of how this would serve the public interest.
Beyond the lifting of the above-mentioned restrictions, the Law also abolishes after July 2, 2011 the requirement that an administrative license be issued to an individual for them to practice a profession.
Instead, only a simple notification accompanied by the necessary supporting credentials is required to start practicing an occupation.
If the relevant licensing authority doesn’t prohibit the individual from practicing within three months after his/her notification due to non-compliance with a legal requirement, then the individual may practice freely. In this case also, a Presidential Decree needs to be issued to maintain a licensing process, otherwise it is repealed automatically.
An indicative and non-exhaustive list of the more than 150 professions that fall under the provisions of Chapter 1 of Law 3919/2011 is included below.
In this list, the following professions are not included:
Those that are regulated separately in the Law (Notaries, Lawyers, Engineers, Chartered Auditors);
Those that are specifically excluded in the Law and have been liberalized by other legislation (commercial road haulage transportation services, pharmacists, geotechnical engineers),
Those that are regulated specifically by European Union law.
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