 Under the European Union's Mutual Recognition Directive, all British accountants with practising rights and belonging to a RQB/RSB can practice as a public accountants in all member countries of the European Union, European Economic Area and Switzerland, providing that they are citizens of one of these states.They can describe themselves only by their own accountancy qualification rather than the local professional accountant qualification; access to the local professional qualifications is based on an aptitude test.Various other national bodies have mutual recognition agreements with most British RQBs.