It is with great pleasure that the EFN welcomes Croatia, all its citizens, and in particular its nurses, as the 28th Member State of the European Union.
After 10 years of a long and difficult enlargement process, to which the EFN was involved through its participation in some of the ‘health’ TAIEX capacity building missions, Croatia EU accession will be an important milestone for the Croatian nurses, since as from today, they will be able to move freely within the EU, based on the mutual recognition of their professional qualifications. Having a nurse’s workforce of around 32.000 individuals, it is expected that Croatian nurses will move to other EU Member States for better jobs and working conditions. This would be a waste of the nursing workforce capacity. The EFN is, therefore, concerned about the brain drain leaving the Croatian healthcare system behind with less qualified staff, and at the same time building health tourism with private means. The European professional card will, thus, be an important tool to build confidence between competent authorities.
Nonetheless, the EFN trusts that Croatia accession to the EU is a strong encouragement for other Western Balkan candidate countries to continue the necessary political, economic, and legislative professional reforms at national level to one day being also part of this significant journey that is the European Union.
