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Free AccessNews and AnnouncementsNewsPublished Online:January 30, 2007https://doi.org/10.1027/1016-9040.1.1.73PDF ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditE-Mail SectionsMoreEuropean Federation of Professional Psychologists' Associations (EFPPA)EFPPA General Assembly in Athens, July 1995: The EFPPA held its General Assembly in Athens in July 1995. The new Executive Council for the next period is: President — Ingrid Lunt; Secretary General — Birgit Hansson; Treasurer — Wim Manniën (new member); Manuel Berdullas (re-elected); Patrick Cohen; Ernst Hermann (re-elected); Sally Saari (new member). This Council will work together for the next two-year period to July 1997.For the next period, the EFPPA has Task Forces in the following areas: clinical psychology, European legal matters, evaluation of psychology curricula, forensic psychology, health psychology, organizational psychology, psychotherapy, psychologists in education, refugees and forced migration, tests and testing, traffic psychology.Following the acceptance by the General Assembly of the Meta-Code of Ethics, the EFPPA established a Standing Committee on Ethics. It also established a Committee on Funding of Postgraduate Education.EFPPA Meta-Code of Ethics: The EFPPA Meta-Code of Ethics was accepted at the 1995 General Assembly and provides a framework within which European associations may develop their own national codes of ethics. A report on the EFPPA Meta-Code will appear in issue 2/96 of the European Psychologist .News from EFPPA Member AssociationsBelgium: The Belgian Federation of Psychologists' Associations has a new President: Diane Drory.France: A new committee for ANOP has been elected: President — Marie Jeanne Robineau; Vice President — Patrick Cohen; Secretary — Alain Letuve; Treasurer — Michele Combeau.Greece: In the recent elections the following were elected Officers of the Association of Greek Psychologists: President — Thalis Papadakis; Vice President — Fotis Anagnostopoulos; Secretary General — Aggelos Karabelas; Special Secretary — Marina Manthouli; Treasurer — Katerina Sikinioti.Letter to Ministers in Greece: The following letter was sent to ministers in Greece to support the efforts of colleagues to develop the profession of psychology and to enable those who have practiced as psychologists to continue to be recognized. To your Excellency the MinisterI write as President of the European Federation of Professional Psychologists' Associations (EFPPA), of which the Association of Greek Psychologists is a member. Through its 26 member associations, EFPPA represents about 1000000 psychologists in Europe. It has been brought to my attention that there are a number of problems concerning the implementation of the legislation for psychologists in Greece (law 991/79), and I write concerning this.Grandparent arrangements for Psychologist qualificationsMost European countries have in place a procedure for the recognition of qualifications obtained by psychologists who have been trained and qualified under an earlier system than the one described in the law. Other European countries such as Great Britain, Italy, and France all have systems which take into consideration the experience of professionals qualified under an earlier route. For example, if a person has been working as a psychologist for three of the five years preceding the legislation, they will normally be granted recognition as a qualified psychologist by the law. This means that for a period of one or two years following the passing or implementation of the law, psychologists who are practicing in the country in question receive recognition of their qualifications and as a psychologist, on application to the body responsible for granting such recognition. At the end of the period of one or two years, all psychologists have to be qualified through the new system as specified by the law.Implementation of the Directive 89/48 in Greece and licensing arrangementsI understand that a committee has been set up to implement the Directive in Greece. It is essential that this committee contains a representative from the professional association for psychologists in Greece which is the Association of Greek Psychologists. As mentioned above, this Association is the Greek member of EFPPA, and as such both constitutes the rightful body to be represented on this committee and is the body entitled to speak for professional psychologists in Greece. EFPPA is the one federation for psychologists in Europe, and represents the interests of psychologists in relation to licensing arrangements, and has the power to monitor the implementation of the directive in its member associations.Ingrid LuntPresident EFPPAItalian Initiative concerning the Maastricht Treaty revision: A reflection group of Ministers has been set up to prepare for the revision of the Maastricht Treaty at the 1996 Inter-Governmental Conference. The European Union held a public hearing open to all interested organizations in Brussels on 17 and 18 October as part of the “Sounding out of the Public on the Revision of the Maastricht Treaty on European Union.” Oral and written contribution were invited. Carlo Alberto Cavallo, a member of the National Board of Italian Psychologists, has been very active in this initiative, and has been coordinating efforts to encourage psychologists' associations to participate and to make contact with their own national ministers. He participated in the public hearing and considered that his speech had a positive effect. He reports that a further hearing will take place in January at which he considers that it is very important for psychologists to take part. This is an opportunity for EFPPA member associations to collaborate and to contribute to debate and policy making at this important level. At present members from the following countries are involved: Spain, Italy, Finland, Germany, France, United Kingdom. Further details are available from Ingrid Lunt, President EFFPA, or from Carlo Alberto Cavallo, National Board of Italian Psychologists, Rome, Italy.Netherlands: New President of the NIP is Hank van der Molen.Norway: At its recent biennial General Meeting and delegate assembly, An-Magritt Aanonsen was elected President of the Norsk Psykolog Forening for the next three-year period, with Vice Presidents being Rune Frøyland, Sissel Krabbe and Sidsel Toft.Sweden: Birgit Hansson was elected for a further 3-year period as President of the Sveriges Psykolog Førbund in May 1995.News from Other Societies and OrganizationsInternational Society for the Study of Individual Differences (ISSID): The ISSID decided to continue with the Early Career Award for young scientists for outstanding contribution in the area of research in personality and individual differences. For more information, contact the Secretary/Treasurer Prof. Dr. A. Angleitner, University of Bielefeld, Department of Psychology, POB 100131, D-33501 Bielefeld, tel. +49 (0)521 106 4540, fax +49 (0)521 106 5844, e-mail angleitner@Post.Uni.Bielefeld.de.European Forum of Psychology Associations: The EFPPA, the IAAP (International Association of Applied Psychologists), and the IUPsyS (International Union of Psychological Science) collaborate in a European “Forum” which seeks to bring together different psychology organizations with a topical or a specialist focus. At the IV European Congress in Athens, many European psychology organizations took part as participating organizations in the Congress, and were involved through keynote lectures and sponsored symposia. The Forum meeting at the congress was convened as usual by EFPPA, IAAP, and IUPsyS, and was combined with a meeting focusing on research developments in Europe which highlighted the importance and some of the challenges of collaboration.This latter meeting, co-chaired by I. Lunt (President, EFPPA) and K. Pawlik (President, IUPsyS), was convened to focus discussion on psychology research opportunities and funding in Europe. The EU Fourth Framework Program, and other funding possibilities, carry through the domains of ideas of scientific and technological change and their social implications, as well as try to promote the mobility of individual researchers. Despite the acknowledged role of psychological research in technological change, few specific lines of research provide a basis for psychological input. These discussions arise out of the realization that collaboration is needed in order to attempt to promote the opportunities and funding for the discipline of psychology within the very competitive context of Europe (both among individuals, institutions, and disciplines), in particular in the European Union. Participants supported plans that, under the aegis of the Forum, will prepare a EU-supported workshop for 1996 to look into needs and possibilities for greater psychological research collaboration and collaborative funding of psychological research in Europe.The Forum provides an opportunity for collaboration between different organizations of psychology, both national and topical organizations, and between psychologists from different interests and different work contexts, for example, from a research and teaching context, a clinical context, an industrial context and others. This should prove beneficial both to psychologists and psychology.SEPLIS: SEPLIS is the European Forum for the Liberal Professions and consists of member federations which are either European mono-professional groups (like EFPPA) or national inter-professional groups (e.g., The United Kingdom Inter-Professional Group). It meets in Brussels about every two months and provides a forum for the professions to work together and to discuss in particular developments from “Brussels” such as draft or proposed Directives. With growing pressures on professionals both in the European Union and in national governments, it is useful to have a forum where developments and initiatives can be discussed, and where common responses can be drafted. EFPPA is represented at SEPLIS by its President, Ingrid Lunt, and by the Executive Secretary of the BDP, Gerd Pulverich.News from the European UnionDirective on Liability for Defective Services: The European Commission withdrew its proposal before last year for a Council directive on liability for defective services. The proposal had been rejected by the Economic and Social Committee and blocked by the Parliament. The Commission has nevertheless announced that it intends to pursue the idea of legislation on liability in the health-care and construction sector. The Commission has engaged experts to study the relationship between consumers and the health-care sector in Sweden, Finland, and Germany. SEPLIS and EFPPA both submitted documents which demonstrated the inappropriateness of the Directive from the point of view of professionals and their work.Draft Directive on Comparative Advertising: The draft Directive (84/450/EEC) has as its purpose “to protect consumers, persons carrying on a trade or business or practicing a craft of profession and the interests of the public in general against misleading advertising … and to lay down the conditions under which comparative advertising is permitted.” At present the EU member states' laws vary from liberal to restrictive. The aim of the directive is to achieve harmonization among member states.The Directive on Protection of Individuals with regard to the processing of personal data, and medical and epidemiological research: The purpose of this draft Directive is to lay down common ground rules for the protection of individual rights, especially the right to privacy with regard to the processing of data. The first legal instrument on a European level was adopted by the Council of Europe in 1981 and has now been ratified by all member states except for Italy and Greece. The focus of this text is the protection of human rights. However, it appears that a more complete harmonization of data protection throughout the European Union is necessary. The objective of the directive is to create a harmonization in all member states of the European Union of the protection of the rights and freedoms of individuals, in particular the right to privacy with regard to the processing of personal data. This clearly has implications for psychologists both as practitioners and as involved in research. There are derogations for “medical research and epidemiology.” It will therefore be the responsibility of the scientific community involved in the processing of personal data to make sure that the national legislation take full account of medical research activities of all data subjects, patients, and researchers. The final adoption of the directive may be expected in late 1995 or in the first part of 1996.European Year of Lifelong Learning: The European Union has proclaimed 1996 as the European Year of Lifelong Learning. During the year, funding (from a budget of about £6 million sterling) will be available to support activities aimed at raising public awareness of Lifelong Learning.FiguresReferencesRelatedDetailsCited byEnhancement of Safety at Storaging Nuclear Power Plants of Warships Removed from Operation Pending Their Decommissioning Volume 1Issue 1March 1996ISSN: 1016-9040eISSN: 1878-531X InformationEuropean Psychologist (1996), 1, pp. 73-75 https://doi.org/10.1027/1016-9040.1.1.73.© 1996Hogrefe & Huber PublishersPDF download