Professionals are unhappy over proposals akin to those in the memorandum of understanding for Ireland, writes CAROL COULTER, Legal Affairs Editor
LAWYERS, PHARMACISTS and others went on strike in Greece last week in protest against proposals from the IMF and EU to reform their professions. These proposals resemble proposals in the memorandum of understanding for Ireland concluded with the EU and the IMF last November.
The Greek memorandum of understanding included proposals to open up more than 150 closed professions, including those involving lawyers, engineers, taxi drivers, welders, notaries, pharmacists, butchers, street market vendors and architects.
Among the restrictions in Greece were those on the opening hours of pharmacies and on the number of pharmacies that can operate, limited to one per 1,000 residents. Lawyers operated minimum fee structures and under restrictions that limited the areas where they could practise so that, for example, only Athenian lawyers could practise in Athens.
According to the EU-IMF memorandum of understanding with Greece, reform of “the legal profession, to remove unnecessary restrictions on fixed minimum tariffs, the effective ban on advertising, territorial restrictions on where lawyers can practice in Greece” is a condition of the drawing down of the fourth tranche of EU-IMF funds in March.
A draft law was prepared in order to lift these and other regulations, and this prompted three-day strikes by pharmacists last week and this week on the eve of a visit to Greece of an EU-IMF inspection team.
The memorandum of understanding with Ireland also requires reform of the two branches of the legal profession, along the lines of the recommendations in a report of the Competition Authority in 2006, some of which were implemented.
However, among those that were not brought in were the establishment of an independent regulator for the legal professions and measures to reduce legal costs, which were the subject of two separate reports – neither of which were acted upon by the Government.
When asked last month for its response to the EU-IMF proposals, the chairman of the Bar Council said certain aspects of the plan, which had not been discussed with the Bar Council, would not be in the public interest. The Law Society said it would discuss the proposals, but has not made any statement on the issue since. Neither organisation indicated they were likely to follow the example of their Greek colleagues.