29% of the European Union’s population use homeopathic medicines in their day-to-day healthcare and 10% of people in the United Kingdom use homeopathy (1).
Homeopathy is legally recognised as a distinct system of medicine by the United Kingdom, Romania, Hungary, Latvia, Germany, Belgium, Portugal, Bulgaria and Slovenia. In some of these countries the law explicitly allows the practice of homeopathic medicine to medical doctors only. Statutory regulation of practitioners has been introduced in Austria, Germany, Hungary, Romania and Switzerland, while in France and Italy which recognise homeopathy as a distinctive system of medicine, legislation is outstanding to regulate the practice of homeopathy. (2) In 2016, the Swiss Government integrated homeopathy and other complementary modalities into their National Health system following a five year trial period (1).
Diplomas of homeopathic doctors are issued by the national medical council or chamber in Austria, German and Switzerland, while in Latvia and Romania there are separate homeopathic doctor association whose diplomas are approved by their governments. (2)
Medical doctor homeopaths are organised through their affiliated national professional associations in the European Committee of Homeopathy (ECH) in Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Netherland, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland and the United Kingdom (2). The ECH unites medically qualified homeopaths across Europe and plays a key role in maintaining professional standards (3).
16 European countries have public registers of trained and regulated professional, non-medical homeopathic practitioners, including Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Ireland, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece, Spain and Portugal (4).
References
(2) https://homeopathyeurope.org/regulatory-status
(3) https://homeopathyeurope.org/about/members/
(4) https://homeopathy-ecch.org/who-we-are/ecch-members/