Get ready for Brexit, workers warned

From horseshoe makers to osteopaths, dance teachers to gas engineers, the European Union has a fresh warning on the perils of Brexit.

In its latest alert about the risks associated with Britain’s planned departure, the EU is telling its nationals in Britain that they should urgently check that their qualifications will be recognised across the rest of bloc, in case they ever want to move.

European Union countries now automatically recognise each other’s professional qualifications so that, for example, an architect from France can train in Italy and find work in Ireland without needing any extra certification. However Britain will fall out of that system when it leaves the EU.

Regulated professions — where a qualification is mandatory — vary from country to country and a database is kept by the EU.

In Britain, as well as jobs such as accountants, social workers and opticians, the list includes farriers (people who shoe horses), dance teachers, divers, foresters, speech therapists and weather forecasters.

Citizens from the EU’s 27 remaining countries should check whether they need to “obtain, before the withdrawal date, the recognition of those UK professional qualifications in an EU 27 member state,” the European Commission said in a statement.

The warning would also apply to British people in regulated professions who want to work in the EU after Brexit.

After Brexit, the recognition of professional qualifications of United Kingdom nationals in an EU state will depend on the rules of that country, regardless of whether the qualifications were obtained in Britain, another non-EU country or in an EU member state.

The “considerable uncertainties, in particular concerning the content of a possible withdrawal agreement” prompted the warning, the European Commission said.

As part of the continuing Brexit negotiations, Britain and the EU have agreed that the qualification recognition system will continue until the end of the post-Brexit transition period at the end of 2020, as long as there is an overall Brexit deal.