Registration of veterinary surgeons from the 2004 accession countries

Since the first veterinary graduate from one of the countries acceding to the EU in 2004 was admitted to the RCVS last July, a further 63 veterinary graduates from among these countries have now been registered.

These comprise one from Cyprus (who actually graduated in Greece), four from the Czech Republic, 11 from Hungary, 27 from Poland and 21 from Slovakia. By comparison, in the same period, a further 248 veterinary surgeons were registered from the countries that were already part of the EU.

On 1 May 2004 nationals of EU Member States who graduated from veterinary schools in the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia became eligible for registration with the RCVS.

Those who graduated before 1 May 2004 are required to provide, in addition to that required of all EU applicants, specific documentation evidencing their eligibility for registration under the EU Recognition Directive. Cyprus and Malta do not have veterinary schools but nationals of these countries who graduate in another Member State are also eligible for registration.

Whilst we are in contact with veterinary surgeons who graduated in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania or Slovenia, we are still waiting to verify the competent registration authorities in each of these countries; we hope to do so soon for Slovenia.

We have established that in all the accession countries, with the exception of Cyprus and Malta, those employed by the state veterinary service are registered with the relevant Ministry of Agriculture and those in private practice with a Veterinary Chambers, which is equivalent to the RCVS.

A number of the veterinary schools in the accession countries offer English language courses and therefore not all those graduates registered are nationals of those Member States. One is a UK national and some others are nationals of other pre-accession Member States and EEA countries (eg. Norway).