On 7 November 2011, the European Commission held aPublic Conference on the Modernisation of the Professional Qualifications Directive, in Brussels, in order to take stock of the various positions in advance of the Commission’s proposal in December which seeks to meet the objectives of the Single Market Act. The conference, which was organised by DG Internal Market and Services, was attended by key stakeholders, national governments and national competent authorities, and featured a speech by Commissioner Barnier. This high level conference highlighted, among other things, the added value of automatic recognition and recognized the need to strengthen and improve the minimum requirements. In order to take advantage of this opportunity, the EFN and six other European sectoral professions released a joint statement stressing the need to preserve the quality and integrity of qualifications. The sectoral professions also attended a brief informal meeting with Commissioner Barnier, marking the beginning of formal negotiations on the modernisation of DIR36.