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Legal Framework

The Minimum Equivalent Fees (HME/MEF) proposal rests on three interconnected layers of law.

This page is a translation for reference. Legal quotations are given in an unofficial English rendering; where precision matters, consult the Spanish original or the official text of the source instrument.

1. The Spanish Constitution

Article 14 CE — Principle of equality

“Spaniards are equal before the law, and no discrimination whatsoever may prevail on account of birth, race, sex, religion, opinion or any other personal or social condition or circumstance.”

Application to MEF: The self-employed professional must be protected against discriminatory treatment in remuneration for equivalent work. Systematic inequality between a self-employed professional and an employee (with equal qualification) amounts to discriminatory treatment currently permitted only by the absence of regulation.

Article 35 CE — Right to decent work

“All Spaniards have the duty to work and the right to work, to the free choice of profession or trade, to advancement through work, and to sufficient remuneration to satisfy their needs and those of their family, and under no circumstances may they be discriminated against on grounds of sex.”

Application to MEF: “Sufficient remuneration” must be equivalent for equivalent work, regardless of status (employee vs. self-employed).

Relevant constitutional case law

  • STC 31/1984 (Constitutional Court): recognises that discrimination requires “unjustified differential treatment.”

2. European Union Law

Directive 2006/123/EC (Services Directive)

Article 15 — Restrictions on the freedom to provide services

“Member States may maintain or introduce restrictions on the freedom to provide services… where they are justified for overriding reasons relating to the public interest…”

Recognised overriding reasons:

  • Consumer protection
  • Protection of workers and non-discrimination
  • Public policy and public security

Application to MEF: A regulation of minimum fees can be justified under “protection of workers” (equalising remuneration between the self-employed and employees).

Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU)

Article 101 — Restrictions on competition

“The following shall be prohibited as incompatible with the internal market: all agreements between undertakings, decisions by associations of undertakings and concerted practices which may affect trade between Member States and which have as their object or effect the prevention, restriction or distortion of competition within the internal market.”

Exceptions and justifications:

  • Article 101(3): exemption where the practice contributes to improving the distribution of goods/services and does not eliminate competition.
  • Directive 2006/123/EC, art. 15: restrictions justified by overriding reasons.

Application to MEF: A regulation adopted through legislation (not a professional-association agreement) that establishes a minimum cost-based floor does not amount to a prohibited restriction if:

  1. It is implemented by the State, not by private actors.
  2. It is grounded in non-discrimination.
  3. It does not eliminate price competition.

Relevant CJEU case law

C-94/04 (Cipolla and Macrino) Holds that a fee scale imposed by a bar association is a restriction on competition. However, it distinguishes between a professional-association tariff (prohibited) and state regulation based on costs (admissible).

C-202/04 (Asnef-Equifax) Permits agreements between competitors if certain conditions are met: consumer benefit, no elimination of competition, necessity to achieve the objective.

C-377/17 (Commission v. Germany, 2019 — the HOAI case) Holds that the mandatory minimum and maximum fees for architects’ and engineers’ services under the German system (HOAI) are contrary to Directive 2006/123/EC. HME/MEF distinguishes itself from that case: the CJEU’s objection targets a scale imposed generally and without sufficient justification of necessity and proportionality, not the very possibility of a remuneration floor — which is why HME/MEF is framed as state regulation grounded in non-discrimination (arts. 14 and 35 CE) and subject to the proportionality test of Directive (EU) 2018/958, not as a professional-association scale.

C-19/23 A recent CJEU judgment confirming the validity of most of the provisions of Directive (EU) 2022/2041 on adequate minimum wages, consolidating the principle of fair remuneration within the European Union.

3. Spanish Administrative Regulations

Spain has more than a century of state-set architects’ fee tariffs, calculated as a percentage of the cost of the works. This historical precedent matters because it shows that a mechanism of remuneration floors regulated by the State — not by professional associations — is an established Spanish legal tradition, not an innovation foreign to the legal order.

Royal Decree of 2 November 1905 (Gaceta de Madrid no. 309)

The first identified state tariff. Approves the “Tariff of fees to be charged by Architects for the works of their profession,” classifying works into six groups by their nature (from sheds and agricultural buildings to cathedrals and first-order buildings) and setting the fee as a percentage of the total cost of the works, decreasing by group and cost bracket. Download RD 2/11/1905 (Spanish original)

Royal Decree of 1 December 1922 (La Construcción Moderna, 15/3/1923)

Replaces the 1905 tariff with the same structure (six groups, a decreasing percentage tariff by cost bracket), updated to the prices of the time. In force until 1977. Download RD 1/12/1922 (reproduced in La Construcción Moderna) (Spanish original)

Royal Decree 2512/1977, of 17 June

Approves the “Tariff of fees of Architects for the works of their profession,” mandatory for twenty years. Regulates fees by commission phase (preliminary studies, preliminary design, basic project, execution project, site supervision), by building type, and an annual update factor (Fa) tied to the cost-of-living index. It is the last mandatory-tariff framework before the 1997 liberalisation. Download RD 2512/1977 (Spanish original)

Law 7/1997, on Liberalising Measures in Land and Professional Association Matters

Replaces the mandatory-tariff regime with merely indicative fee scales (art. 5.ñ), in compliance with competition law. From this point on, architects’ fees are no longer set by the State and are instead agreed between the parties, with non-binding professional-association reference scales.

COAM — Indicative fee scales 2007 (adapted to the CTE building code)

The current indicative-reference document of the Madrid Official Association of Architects (COAM), drawn up pursuant to art. 5.ñ) of Law 7/1997 and art. 14.e) of Law 19/1997 on Professional Associations of the Community of Madrid. It considers the degree of work, training, knowledge, dedication and costs necessary to carry out a commission, with coefficient tables by floor area, use and complexity. Expressly compatible with the freedom of contract under Law 7/1997: it does not set fees, it guides them. Download COAM Indicative Scales 2007 (Spanish original)

Royal Decree 1619/2012 (Public Works Contracts)

Establishes a budgeting methodology for public works, including overheads and industrial profit, used here as a valid reference.

SEGIPSA — Resolution of 11 May 2015 (BOE no. 126, 27/5/2015)

SEGIPSA (Sociedad Estatal de Gestión Inmobiliaria de Patrimonio, S.A.), an in-house instrumental body of the Spanish General State Administration, applies percentage tariffs on the Execution Cost Budget (PEM) for drafting projects and site supervision commissioned by the Administration:

Item PEM bracket % of PEM
Project drafting (incl. Health and Safety Study) Up to €1,000,000 6.65%
  €1,000,001 – €3,000,000 5.61%
  €3,000,001 – €6,000,000 4.63%
  €6,000,001 – €10,000,000 4.11%
  Over €10,000,000 3.60%
Site supervision and execution management (without safety and health coordination) Up to €1,000,000 5.68%
  €1,000,001 – €3,000,000 4.77%
  €3,000,001 – €6,000,000 3.97%
  €6,000,001 – €10,000,000 3.53%
  Over €10,000,000 3.08%

In practice, this is the very same mechanism as the state tariffs of 1905, 1922 and 1977 — a percentage of the cost of the works, decreasing by bracket — applied today by the General State Administration itself to its own commissioned work. These brackets are the reference used — as a manual check, not applied automatically — in this site’s calculation tools. Download the SEGIPSA Resolution (BOE 27/5/2015) (Spanish original)

CNMC — Communication CNS/DC/902/23 (26/9/2023)

A communication from the Competition Directorate of the CNMC (the Spanish competition authority), issued in response to a query from healthcare professional associations, on the application in Spain of European Commission Guidelines 2022/C 374/02 on the application of EU competition law to collective agreements regarding the working conditions of solo self-employed people.

The CNMC confirms that, under the Guidelines, collective agreements negotiated by solo self-employed people (without employees) fall outside the scope of art. 101 TFEU where they are in one of the following situations: (a) economic dependence (≥50% of income from a single counterparty); (b) working “side by side” with employees, under comparable conditions; or (c) dependence on digital platforms. In addition, the Competition Directorate states that it will not intervene, even where those situations do not apply, where there is an imbalance of bargaining power vis-à-vis the counterparty — in particular where the counterparty represents an entire sector or has an annual turnover above €2,000,000 or 10 or more employees.

Scope — important: this communication refers expressly to solo self-employed people without employees. It does not, as such, cover a self-employed professional with staff (an architectural practice with employees, for instance), whose fit within art. 101 TFEU would require a separate analysis. HME/MEF relies on it as a precedent that the CNMC accepts exceptions to art. 101 TFEU based on the self-employed worker’s imbalance of bargaining power, not as direct coverage for any form of professional practice. Download CNMC communication CNS/DC/902/23 (Spanish original)

4. International and Comparative Law

Italy — reference regulation

HME/MEF’s foundation is not Italian law — the proposal was raised in Spain in 2021, on the basis of the constitutional principle of non-discrimination (arts. 14 and 35 CE) — rather, these rules are brought in afterwards as a reference for the calculation method and as evidence that an equivalent mechanism is legally viable in the EU. Italy has three successive, mutually consistent layers of regulation, summarised below.

Legge 2 marzo 1949, n. 143 (“Approval of the professional tariff for engineers and architects”). A historical precedent: it set hourly rates a vacazione (Capo I, art. 4) for three categories — professionista incaricato (the professional in charge), aiuto iscritto (registered assistant), aiuto di concetto (junior assistant) — with a ratio between them (1.00 / 0.67 / 0.42) practically identical to the one the DM 17/6/2016 would adopt seventy years later (1.00 / 0.70 / 0.54), which evidences the continuity of the criterion of classification by professional category in the Italian system. Download Legge 143/1949 (Italian original)

Decree of the Ministry of Justice of 17 June 2016 (“Regulation approving the tables of fees commensurate with the quality level of design services”) — published in the Gazzetta Ufficiale no. 174 of 27/7/2016. Establishes the calculation method for the tender-base fee (corrispettivo a base di gara) for architectural and engineering services:

  • Arts. 2–4: formula CP = Σ(V·G·Q·P), where V is the value of the works (valore dell’opera) by category, G is the degree of complexity (grado di complessità, Table Z-1) and Q is the incidence parameter (parametro dell’incidenza) of each service phase (Table Z-2); P = 0.03 + 10/V^0.4.
  • Art. 5: flat-rate ancillary expenses (oneri accessori forfettari) — up to 25% of the fee for works valued at ≤ €1,000,000, down to 10% for works ≥ €25,000,000, with linear interpolation between the two thresholds.
  • Art. 6.2: for services not covered by the tables, reference hourly rates: professionista incaricato €50–75/h, aiuto iscritto €37–50/h, aiuto di concetto €30–37/h.

These hourly rates under art. 6.2 are the basis of the amount↔hours conversion factor (€60.5/h) used in this site’s calculation tools, updating the lower end of the band (€50/h, 2016) by cumulative Italian CPI 2016→2024. Download DM 17/6/2016 (full text with Tables Z-1 and Z-2) (Italian original)

Decreto Legislativo 31 dicembre 2024, n. 209 (“Supplementary and corrective provisions to the public contracts code,” amending the Public Contracts Code, D.Lgs. 36/2023; published in Gazzetta Ufficiale no. 17 of 22/1/2025). This is the instrument that consolidates and updates the current Italian public-procurement framework within which the DM 17/6/2016 parameter system continues to operate by reference. No specific article of this decree is cited here: it is referenced only as evidence that the Italian parametric-fee model remains in force and under active legislative development, not as the source of any specific figure or formula used on this site. See the official text (Gazzetta Ufficiale) · See on Normattiva

Germany — HOAI

Honorarordnung für Architekten und Ingenieure: a table of minimums periodically updated through market analysis.

5. Compatibility Analysis

Is HME/MEF compatible with TFEU art. 101?

Yes, under the following conditions:

  1. State implementation — possibly, with technical collaboration or delegated management by professional associations under public supervision, but never through autonomous association-set fee scales (this removes the character of an agreement between competitors).
  2. Grounded in non-discrimination (an objective of general interest).
  3. Based on a rigorous cost analysis, not on “protection of the profession.”
  4. Does not eliminate price competition (it is a floor, not a fixed price).
  5. Periodic review with updated data.

Does it violate the right to freely provide services?

No, because:

  • Directive 2006/123/EC, art. 15, allows restrictions for overriding reasons.
  • Non-discrimination is a recognised overriding reason.
  • There is precedent for similar models within the EU (Italy).

Full Regulatory References

Instrument Relevant articles Link
Spanish Constitution 14, 35 boe.es
TFEU 101, 102 eur-lex.europa.eu
Directive 2006/123/EC 15 eur-lex.europa.eu
Directive 2018/958 Arts. 6-8 eur-lex.europa.eu
RD 1619/2012 107-115 boe.es
RD 2/11/1905 (fee tariff) Tariff I-XI PDF (ES)
RD 1/12/1922 (fee tariff) Tariff I PDF (ES)
RD 2512/1977 (fee tariff) Arts. 1-2, Transitional provisions PDF (ES)
Law 7/1997 (liberalisation) Art. 5.ñ) boe.es
COAM, Indicative Scales 2007 — PDF (ES)
SEGIPSA, Resolution 11/5/2015 (BOE 27/5/2015) Section Second.2 PDF (ES)
Legge (IT) 2/3/1949, n. 143 Capo I, art. 4 PDF (IT)
DM (IT) 17/6/2016 Arts. 2-6 PDF (IT)
D.Lgs. (IT) 31/12/2024, n. 209 — (general reference) gazzettaufficiale.it
CNMC, CNS/DC/902/23 (26/9/2023) — (solo self-employed without employees) PDF (ES)

Additional Resources

Last updated: September 2026