OK for the new baccalaureate exam: four subjects to be decided in the oral exam in January. Reform on accountants postponed

Green light from the Cabinet for the criminal shield for doctors. The Council of Ministers, which ended at around 5.30 p.m., has in fact approved the bill delegating authority to the government on the subject of healthcare professions and provisions relating to the professional liability of healthcare professionals, which provides for doctors to be punishable only for 'gross negligence'.

The government has also given the green light to the decree law that reforms the baccalaureate exam. The government has in fact approved the decree-law that, according to the indications provided by Education Minister Giuseppe Valditara at the end of the summit at Palazzo Chigi, stipulates that "those who do not take the oral test regularly will fail".

Finally, the executive approved the reform of professional orders. The draft delegated law on the overall reorganisation of the professional orders provides for the reorganisation of the statutes of 14 professional categories, which will allow for the modernisation of the sector, also with reference to the impact that new technologies (in particular artificial intelligence, on which hours of 'ad hoc' training will be required) are having on autonomous activity, as well as the harmonisation of the rules of those who, in our market, perform similar activities. During the same government session, a measure was under consideration for the 'restyling' of the discipline of the profession of accountants, the examination of which has been postponed. The measure concerns the categories of agro-technicians, architects, social workers, actuaries, labour consultants, agronomists and foresters, geologists, surveyors, journalists, engineers, agricultural and industrial experts, customs agents and industrial property consultants. Among the general principles that the Executive will have to adhere to, when issuing the implementing text, is that of 'enhancing the social and economic role of the regulated professions and recognising the contribution they make to the economic, social and cultural development of the country', and of 'guaranteeing the independence and intellectual autonomy of the professional'. Following this, the bill states, it will be necessary to 'define the professional activities reserved, or in any case attributed also non-exclusively to each profession, providing that members of the professional registers are recognised as having specific competence' in their own fields. In addition, the measure establishes that 'the National Councils are to be exclusively responsible for adopting and updating the code of ethics' with 'the explicit provision, for the protection of the consumer, of rules that guarantee that the professional performance, even if carried out with the aid of digital technologies, is the result of the professionalism and specific competence of the member'. Finally, with regard to the application of the law of 2023 on fair compensation, it is provided that, for each Order, the parameters for determining the remuneration of services are to be established or updated by decree of the supervising ministry, at the proposal of the National Council, to be adopted within one hundred and twenty days of the entry into force of the relevant legislative decree.

Finally, the Council of Ministers approved a decree-law introducing urgent provisions on the regular entry of foreign workers and citizens, as well as on the management of the migration phenomenon. Among the solutions, according to a note published by Palazzo Chigi in the evening, is a revision of the deadline for the adoption of the nulla osta for subordinate work, stipulating that the deadline runs from the moment the request is charged to the entry quota, rather than from the date of submission of the application. In addition, the check currently prescribed in relation to the truthfulness of the declarations made by employers when pre-filling out applications for the nulla osta for employment for the year 2025 is also extended to declarations made for entries relating to: employment in special cases, voluntary work, nulla osta for research, highly qualified foreign workers, intra-corporate transfers. In the procedures for the recruitment of foreign workers, including seasonal workers, the institutes of the pre-filling of work authorisation requests and of the limit of requests (maximum of 3 authorisation requests, as private users, by employers), already provided for on an experimental basis for the year 2025 only, are made fully operational. These mechanisms are also extended to subordinate seasonal work. The right of a foreign worker to reside legitimately in the territory of the State and temporarily carry out work is also extended to cases of 'waiting' for the conversion of a residence permit, in addition to those already provided for issuance and renewal.

With regard instead to themeasures for education, school-to-work alternation, the minister added, "changes from Pcto, pathways for transversal skills and orientation, a very cryptic acronym, to school-to-work training, to emphasise the importance of this connection as well, which we believe is particularly significant in the training pathway of young people". Valditara then went on to say that the 4+2 reform, "becomes ordinamental, so it will be compulsory where it is possible to set up the sector. The five-year course will not disappear, but the so-called 4+2 course will also have to be added. This year," he emphasised, "there are almost 10,000 students enrolled between the first and second year.