A great attraction

One of the great attractions of process engineering as a career is that it offers the chance of working anywhere in the world. Graduates are no longer constrained by geography. But the question of who can call themselves a process or chemical engineer, and therefore practise their profession, is becoming a vexed one for the European Union.

In theory, the whole of the European Union - fifteen states now, with another ten, mostly in Eastern Europe, set to join in two months’ time - should represent a ‘home market’ for engineers, with qualifications gained in one state automatically recognised in another.

But this isn’t the case, as educational standards and practices vary greatly from one state to another. In the light of this, the European Commission’s attempt to harmonise the rules on recognition of professional qualifications is extremely welcome.

Some aspects of the proposals clearly need to be resolved. For example, FEANI, the Fédération Européenne d’Associations Nationales d’Ingénieurs, believes that engineers should only receive professional recognition when they have practised the profession full-time for four years or more in the last ten, rather than two years, as in the Commission’s original proposals. And fortunately, the MEPs threw out a proposal that professionals should be able to work in another EU nation for 16 weeks without needing to register.

This is as much a matter of safety than of status. Engineers are entrusted with maintaining standards of public safety and environmental protection, so the rules governing how their qualifications are recognised need to be strict, logical and clearly understood.

It’s a good sign that the European Commission and Parliament recognise the impact that engineers have on people’s lives. Once the problems with the proposals are sorted out, it should go some way towards increasing confidence in engineers - and making engineering even more attractive and, hopefully, popular as a career choice.