International The Telegraph

INTERNATIONAL

-Sylvie BULLO, France

The enigmatic Sempe is, without doubt, the most discreet of French draughtsman. This cartoonist, as he describes himself, collaborates on one of Manhattan's most prestigious magazines, the "New Yorker". In his caustic drawings, he depicts our society without making any concessions, in the pure style of a pamphleteer.

Bigots in ecstasy, little old ladies, unlikely musicians, Sunday painters, model office-workers, middle-class me wearing indoor jackets, children walking on their hands, joggers with personal stereos and Mr. Lamberts and the likes…For 50 years, Jean-Jacques Sempe has portrayed life with his fine, but very present, pen. The artist known as the La Bruyere of drawing continues to cast a detached, amused and even cruel glance at his contemporaries. But his pictures are always timeless. It is my big dream, not out of pretentiousness but out of faithfulness that I have for the draughtsmen that I have admired, Chaval, Bosc and my "idols" on the New Yorker in the 50s and 60s such as Paul Steinberg and William Steig, Sempe confides. They provided his main source of inspiration, with their detached humorous cartoons of what is immediately in the news, combining poetry and the minute observation of the modern world.

A few years later, Sempe too figured on the first page of this literary magazine based in the center of Manhattan. "I did not, for a second, think I would work there. I was terrified by the demands of this paper in which the chief editors made people start the same work all over again thirty times. I said that I would draw for them if they asked me to, knowing that they would never come looking for me", he recounts. But, one day, a journalist from the New Yorker, whom he had met in Paris, took back a few of Sempe's albums with him and showed them to his chief editor. The latter was thrilled and suggested he sent him something. In the following weeks, Sempe worked like a maniac and sent him a cover showing a little man with the body of a bird who hesitated to fly off from the window of his sky-scrapper. It was published right away. "That drawing came out on my birth day, in 1978, I think it is still my favorite. When the New Yorker took me on, for the first time in my life I felt that I existed! I remember it was right in the middle of winter, a freezing winter. I did not have any gloves, or a scarf and yet I crossed Central Park ecstatically happy. The paper often let me use a small office where I would lock myself away. I was alone in the evening in that empty building. It was magnificent. During the first ten years of my collaboration, I must have made about fifty covers and a lot of drawings for inside the magazine", he remembers.

Yet, at that time, Sempe well and truly existed as he had published a dozen albums and, in particular, he was creator, together with Goscinny, of "Petit Nicolas". "But I did not sell enough copies to live from it and I worried about not being able to do any others. For me, a book is essential." His books are peoples with little characters for whom their authors feels a certain tenderness and whom he has "never looked down on. I would be incapable of drawing a character I despised. That is why I would never have been able to dip my pen in Indian ink to do a caricature of a politician. I have always admired the efforts that human beings make to exist and to achieve some thing, no matter how derisory it seems". Moreover, Sempe finds himself in his "creatures". He too had to hang in there to fulfil his dreams. He had a tough time. "I can't count the number of times I thought that I would pass out when I took my pictures to sell, knowing that, if they did not accept them. I would not be able to pay for the maid's room that I was renting. I lived through this ordeal for nearly fifteen years. Yet Sempe was born without any particular vocation. He was a delivery boy on a bicycle, or dreamed being a drummer in Lino Ventura's band or a gym teacher. "I was thirteen years old. It was just the end of the war. I had one leg bigger than the other and I used to say my friends, "we can't just stay like that". We did not have a physical education teacher and I could well see myself in that part. Strange as it may seem, I was more gifted at looking after others than at taking care of myself". Sempe goes on dealing with others, by drawing them and by observing them in Paris and as in Manhattan. Inexhaustible sources of inspiration. But speaking English has always been a source of "'suffering" for him. "I can not speak English, nor German, nor Italian. It makes me infinitely sad. I think I would have liked to be multilingual. But, fortunately for me, the artistic director of the New Yorker is French!"

Germany: Liberal professions and the European Union

-Annegret Sorge, Germany

The process of European integration is having an increasing impact on the development of the liberal professions. The right of Union citizens to establish themselves or provide services anywhere in the EU is a fundamental principle of the Community. However, the diverse national rules on professional qualifications can stand in the way of these basic freedoms. Traditionally, the legal basis for the liberal professions has existed at the national level. Since the 1970s, Community legislation and the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice have supplemented it. With regard to the liberal professions, the EU is pursuing two main objectives in the field of competition policy: the cessation of anti-competitive practices and the promotion of forms of cooperation which facilitate access to other geographical markets and improve the scope for members of the liberal professions to operate at Community or international level. A range of pieces of draft legislation, such as the 7th act amending the act on tax advisers or the act amending the act of auditors, are creating the conditions in Germany to bring national law into line with European law. The consequence of this is that the single European market is intensifying national and international competition.

Organizations of the liberal profession:

The organizations representing the liberal professions are structured as corporations under public law or an independent private law association.

A large proportion of members of the liberal professions e.g. lawyers, business consultants, tax advisers and doctors, are required to be the members of the professional association responsible for their profession. The duties of these self-regulatory bodies include the upholding of the rules governing the profession.

Doctors, for example, are required to be the members of the doctors' association of the Land in which they work. The tasks of the doctors' association include looking after the professional needs of the doctors' in particular the supervision, further training, and welfare of the doctors, conciliation, and the initial vocational training of the doctors assistants under the Vocational Training Act. In addition, via his membership of the doctors' association at Land level, the individuals doctor is also a member of the German Medical Association. This is the umbrella organization of the doctors' self-regulation and represents the professional interests of some 358,000 doctors, as of 1998, in Germany. The German Medical Association takes an active role in the decision-making processes of society in the field of health policy and, for example, develops idea for a health and welfare policy, which is responsible and is close to the needs of the individual.

The professional associations of the liberal professions e.g. the Kassenarztliche Bundesvereinigung, doctors working for statutory health insurance schemes, the Deutscher Anwaltverein e.V, lawyers, the Bund Deustcher Architecten or the Bundesverband der Dolmetscher und Ubersetzer e.V translators and interpreters, represent either regional associations or all their members in relations with parliament and other organizations and government agencies. They produce general guidelines for the right to work in the profession, for further training and for initial training for the young people. They also use newspapers, publications, seminars and congresses to inform their members about current issues relating to the profession.

Let us take the Federal Association of German management Consultants to show the type of work done by many professional associations representing the members of the liberal professions. The BDU is the business and professional association of management and personal advisers and has some 450 members with 14,000 employees. Those wishing to join the BDU have to fulfil certain conditions, e.g. a minimum age of 30, references from clients and BDU members, and observance of the professional principles and the code of conduct of the BDU. As a result, membership of the BDU is a mark of the reliability and quality of the advice given.

The association aims to have a positive impact on the economic and legal environment of the sector, to promote the use of external advice, to enforce quality standards via professional principles, and thus to improve standards in the sector. For example, the BDU works to protect designation "Unternehmensberater, business consultant. To this end, it has presented draft legislation to the Federal and Lander governments and has produced structural data on the consultancy market, in order to highlight the significance of the sector. The work of the BDU also concentrates on an exchange of experience between members, their further training, consolidating image of the association and the sector, and providing a comprehensive service for its members.

The Federal Association of Liberal Professions is the umbrella organization for most of the associations of the liberal professions. It consists of 16 Lander associations, 68 professional associations as ordinary members, and six professional associations as sponsoring members. The purpose of the body is to "pursue all inter-professional efforts by members of the liberal professions in a general sense and to work towards the safeguarding and the expansion of the liberal professions"'. The BFB represents the interests of the liberal professions in relations with the agencies of the Federal Government and the Lander and is committed to safeguarding the ethical and commercial basis for the right to work in a profession and to skilled initial and further training.

The Union of Liberal Professions, UFB, is a smaller representative body. It currently represents 6000 members of the liberal professions in relations with government agencies and the public.

The liberal professions embrace a significant amount of the potential of the modern service society in Germany. The policies of the Federal government for small and medium-sized enterprises, which include the liberal professions, therefore concentrate on key aspects like the promotion of new business startups, the availability of capital, the reduction of bureaucracy, training rules, innovation and female entrepreneurs.

The liberal professions fulfil tasks of great importance for society. That is particularly true of the provision of medical care, advice on legal and tax matters, accounting and auditing, and of many freelance cultural professions.