Implementation of Key Commitments and the Future of the Bologna Process

Abstract

The Bologna Process has brought radical change to Higher Education policy and practice at both the European and national level. It has built trust between systems, enabled mobility of students and staff, and the recognition of credits and degrees throughout the EHEA. However, the Bologna Process and its philosophy can only function through effective commitment to its implementation. As a voluntary process with a limited legislative framework it relies on national policymakers, institutions, staff, students and stakeholders to effectively implement the strategic tools of the process; as once countries have committed to it, it is arguably no longer voluntary to implement the commitments they signed up for. In recent years there has been increasing concern about the level and nature of implementation of the Bologna commitments in many of its member countries. Incomplete implementation can easily undermine the entire system, destroy its credibility and might, in the end, bring about a two-tiered or even a multi-tiered EHEA, with a non-functioning Bologna Process at its empty core. At the EHEA Ministerial Conference in Yerevan in 2015 these concerns were strongly expressed, and the 2015–2018 work program has put increased emphases on implementation of Bologna commitments, as well as the monitoring of the fundamental values of the Bologna Process. This presentation will discuss challenges faced in introducing increased monitoring to a collegial collaboration, and how the success of this work may in the long run determine the eventual survival or extinction of both the Bologna Process and the European Higher Education Area.

Introduction

The European Higher Education Area (EHEA) is a unique international collaboration on higher education, where 48 countries, with different political, cultural and academic traditions, cooperate on the basis of open dialogue, shared goals and common commitments. Although membership is voluntary, the convergence of higher education systems in all EHEA countries, and as such the entire concept of the EHEA, relies on the implementation of a common set of commitments: structural reforms and shared tools, which have been agreed to and adopted at a political level in all member countries. Furthermore, the EHEA is grounded in a number of shared fundamental values, including a commitment to academic freedom, free mobility by students and staff, institutional autonomy and the full and equal participation of higher education students and staff in institutional governance.

The EHEA is thus a wide-ranging international collaboration with the potential to bring about radical change in European higher education, and for some countries and across some borders it has managed to fulfil that potential. It proposes to change the way the entire EHEA structures higher education with a range of shared tools, values, and a level of transparency that is not found or even attempted in many other international collaborative areas, designed to allow ready, free and fully recognised mobility across the entire EHEA.

When fully implemented, the Bologna Process foresees countries working together across geographical and political boundaries, bringing with that the idea of a near to utopian higher education system of a borderless Europe and beyond, with common values and a shared fundamental philosophy; a philosophy of academic freedom, democracy, stakeholder participation, institutional autonomy, and higher education actively building social cohesion and responsible citizenship.

The Limitations of Utopia

A process that began with Ministers responsible for higher education in 29 European countries signing the Bologna Declaration in 1999 has expanded to 48 countries in the intervening near to 20 years. In such a rapidly expanding collaborative network, countries will find themselves at various stages in the adaptive process and advancing through it at vastly different paces. Such an uneven advancement of improvements can be workable if all within the process are moving in the same direction and aiming to meet the commitments which they have signed up for as soon as possible and at least within a foreseeable future. That determined directionality, however, is not always evident, and national reports on implementation suggest that the EHEA is still a long way from functioning in the way it is intended. In some cases, such as the recent reintroduction of the appointment of rectors by the Minister in Turkey, it may even be suggested that countries have changed direction and are moving further away from the shared Bologna goals and values that they had previously committed to.

Upon examining the level of implementation of even the most basic of Bologna commitments, such as the implementation of ECTS credits or recognition of qualifications obtained abroad, it is evident that not only are there countries which are moving very slowly, admittedly in a common direction but also that this group includes countries which are not newcomers to the EHEA. In other countries, the implementation of certain Bologna commitments has ground to a complete halt. Thus for a number of countries, implementation of even relatively simple commitments is incomplete or even non-existent. More worryingly, amongst them are countries which have participated and thus been supposedly committed to the process for a long time.

The 2015 Bologna Process Implementation report (European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice 2015) highlights well some of these problems, only a handful of which are highlighted here. Degree structures are highly variable across the EHEA, and workloads behind qualifications differ so dramatically between education systems that those with the greatest number of ECTS credits for the first two cycles combined are 120 ECTS longer than those with the smallest number of ECTS credits for the same. In addition, many countries still offer first cycle higher education programmes that are longer than four years, as well as programmes that fall completely outside of Bologna structures, even when equivalent programmes elsewhere in the EHEA have been successfully shortened or separated into two cycles and meet equivalent learning outcomes. This difference in workload leads to problems with recognition of degrees and makes recognition of qualifications across borders problematic. It also raises the question whether learning outcomes in what should be equivalent qualifications are proportionate to the length of the course of study and the workload needed to finish it.

National qualification frameworks (NQFs) are too frequently either not fully in place or remain unimplemented. Although a number of countries have made significant progress in implementing NQFs in the period between 2012 and 2015, some others have made no progress at all, in particular with regard to institutional implementation. The majority of EHEA countries also face challenges in including non-formal qualifications within their national qualification frameworks. Without functioning NQFs, higher education systems remain both non-transparent and difficult to compare and hinder the mobility of qualifications and credits, and by extension students and employees. Such mobility is further hindered by the fact that two-thirds of EHEA countries fail to fulfil all the requirements of the Diploma Supplement (European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice 2015: p. 74), i.e. do not issue them to all graduates automatically, free of charge and in a widely spoken European language, despite such a commitment having been initially entered into in the Berlin Communiqué in 2003 to be effective across the EHEA from 2005.

External and internal quality assurance is evolving rapidly in the EHEA, and most EHEA countries now have established quality assurance agencies, with a majority having been demonstrated to be ESG compliant (European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice 2015: p. 98). However, there is still a need for greater involvement of students, employers and other stakeholders at all levels of Quality Assurance in many EHEA countries, and there is extremely limited openness to cross-border quality assurance work, with only 25% (European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice 2015: pp. 95–96) of EHEA higher education systems allowing their institutions to be evaluated by a foreign EQAR registered agency. It is worrying that such an opportunity to increase integration of quality assurance in the EHEA is only being adopted by such a small number of EHEA countries.

In addition to the problem with implementing fundamental tools of the Bologna Process, many of the fundamental values of the Bologna Process have also not been universally adopted, and some, such as academic freedom and institutional autonomy, are actively being eroded in a number of member countries. In 2015 there was such concern about fundamental values in the EHEA that in the Yerevan Communiqué the ministers stated that:

We will support and protect students and staff in exercising their right to academic freedom and ensure their representation as full partners in the governance of autonomous higher education institutions. We will support higher education institutions in enhancing their efforts to promote intercultural understanding, critical thinking, political and religious tolerance, gender equality, and democratic and civic values, in order to strengthen European and global citizenship and lay the foundations for inclusive societies.

In the intervening years, this situation has not really improved; if anything, a number of instances of blatant violation of these values by EHEA countries that have been condemned by civil society and other stakeholders, as well as other international organisations or collaborations have gone largely un-noted and have certainly been rarely commented on by the Bologna Process and its representatives. These include, amongst others, the recent amendment to the Hungarian National Higher Education Law in spring 2017 that effectively undermined the operability of the Central European University; and the infringements of fundamental values of the Bologna Process following the failed coup attempt in Turkey in July 2016 that saw the closure of academic institutions and the dismissal of deans and academic staff.

Tackling Non-implementation: Yerevan, Paris and Beyond

The danger with a collaboration where the lack of implementation is allowed to pass relatively un-noted and certainly without much consequence is that participation in the Bologna Process becomes seen not so much as an agreement to higher education reform but rather as a rubber stamp of approval of a country´s higher education system as it stands, albeit with a vague promise to take up all Bologna tools, commitments and values at a future date, that is never officially questioned and challenged.

Inside and outside Europe, the Bologna Process and the EHEA have been promoted by the BFUG itself and by its member countries as an example of successful internationalisation of higher education, and one that could have implications for regional collaborations elsewhere. Thus coordinated structural reform, integration and resultant interoperability between national systems are seen as being exemplary of an integration that has, to all intents and purposes, led to a unified higher education area, the degrees and credits from which can and should be relied upon irrespective of the individual country in which the learning was obtained. However, problems with non-implementation do more than tarnish that example, they negate the premise that to those outside the EHEA, the Bologna Process should guarantee that a graduate from any EHEA single country, be it Iceland, Belarus, France, Russia, Albania, Norway, Austria, Belgium or Liechtenstein (to name but a few), should have obtained the same learning outcomes, under the same quality assurance standards as a graduate from any other EHEA country.

In the period leading up to the EHEA Ministerial conference in 2015, there was an increasing lack of political interest in the Bologna Process, along with considerable discussion within the BFUG on how the lack of implementation was de facto undermining the process as a whole, creating a two-tiered or even a multi-tiered European Higher Education Area, where trust and transparency may have existed between the systems of some countries, but the majority would question one or other aspect of higher education offered in another EHEA country. Whether it be the perceived lack of appropriate quality assurance; an incompatibility of national qualification frameworks, or even an ingrained mistrust in a system different from your own, the end result was the same: a failure to make appropriate use of Bologna tools and with it a lack of transparency and trust. Degrees and credits from some countries might have been readily transferable to others, but that was by many thought to be the exception rather than the rule. This unease is well documented in a concept note prepared for the conference entitled “The Bologna Process Revisited: The Future of the European Higher Education Area” (2015), which clearly states that the full implementation of the common framework and tools in all participating countries should be one of the priorities for the European Higher Education Area in years to come. The notion is carried forward into the Ministerial Communiqué from Yerevan in 2015 which voices the concern that “implementation of the structural reforms is uneven and the tools are sometimes used incorrectly or in bureaucratic and superficial ways” and highlights how “non-implementation in some countries undermines the functioning and credibility of the whole EHEA.” It goes on to state that “by 2020 we [the Ministers] are determined to achieve an EHEA where our common goals are implemented in all member countries to ensure trust in each other’s higher education systems”. As a consequence, the Work Programme for the period 2015–2018 includes an advisory group dedicated solely to working on non-implementation and mandated to put together a proposal for how to tackle non-implementation issues in the future to be put before the Ministers at their meeting in Paris in 2018. The work of this advisory group is discussed in the next section of this paper.

There is a need to put this pressure to focus on implementation problems in the political context of a Europe in a state of flux. The recent economic crisis has had a clear impact on funding of higher education across much of Europe, and there is no end in sight for subsequent austerity measures put on the sector in many countries. In others, funding has been improved, adding further to the imbalance in attractiveness of different higher education systems to international students, should they want a full degree or a more limited period of educational mobility. At the same time, there is greater pressure on education in general and higher education institutions in particular to provide students with flexible and transferable skills for life, in a world where education no longer should prepare you for a job but rather for work in whichever unknown or unforeseen sector becomes important to the national or international economy through your working life.

This pressure on higher education systems is in some places exacerbated by violation of the rights of students, staff and institutions, and nationalist and populist politics, which threaten the fundamental values of the “utopian Bologna philosophy”. The upcoming exit of the United Kingdom from the European Union, the increased closing of borders to hinder the flow of people through Europe and the subsequent loss of belief in the right to free movement have the potential to create even greater distrust of education and credits gained abroad than previously. There is, thus, an ever growing need to tackle the lack of implementation of Bologna commitments head-on and put in place a constructive process to deal with the problems encountered before the effective collapse of the European Higher Education area and the Bologna Process on which its foundations rest.

One of the challenges facing those wanting to put a greater focus on the implementation of Bologna Commitments is the notion of voluntary membership of the Process and the way in which that is interpreted by some national policymakers and institutions. The idea of a voluntary process is central to the “Bologna ideology” as is necessitated by an international collaboration which is not underpinned by a strong, universally recognised, legal framework. It is, however, essential that for the Bologna Process to function, the voluntary nature of the agreement only applies to participation but never to implementation. In short—once you sign up to take part in the Bologna Process, you should not expect to find yourself in front of a smörgåsbord of educational delicacies where you might choose to have two slices of salmon but ignore both the ham sandwiches and the potato salad. Instead, you sit down to a set lunch, carefully nutritionally balanced but not catered to individual tastes. It may look less appetising than the smörgåsbord but its constituent parts have been carefully thought through so that unless you consume all the individual components you miss out on its full benefits and it will function less than optimally.

Many member countries, however, do not interpret the notion of voluntary membership in the way illustrated above. Rather, their understanding is that upon entering the Bologna Process countries remain free to adapt and interpret the commitments that come with such a membership in a way and at a speed that best befits their national agendas and politics. Sometimes, the end result may be the same but too often it is not. The EHEA is an area comprising 48 countries that each has its own national higher education policies, agendas, and traditions. Joining the Bologna Process frequently provides a focus and direction for fundamental national reform that would most likely have taken place with or without the Bologna Process. However, the tools of the Process enable that reform to be directional and coordinated across borders, enhancing internationalisation and mobility. Contrastingly the approach of other national governments has been less systematic. Bologna tools may operate alongside incompatible national tools, or only those tools that can be fitted within current national legislation become adopted. There is the notion that by adopting all the tools of the Bologna Process, higher education policy decisions are delegated or perhaps even lost to an international body under limited national control.

The Bologna Process is a collegiate process, and for some countries that fundamental notion of collegiality is challenged by initiating a set of actions that specifically target any of its members, even when those countries have been repeatedly documented to be unable to or unwilling to implement the commitments of the Bologna Process. Thus, there is a need for any plan to tackle non-implementation in the first instance, at least, to do so in a way that reflects that ethos of peer-support and peer-review that for many is seen as the underlying principle of the “Bologna culture”. Although a worthy notion, it is also one that makes tackling non-implementation issues essentially more difficult than had the choice been made to simply set a time limit to get things in order, with clear consequences for missing the deadline.

Bologna Key Commitments

The Bologna Process has many tools, values and principles, but hitherto monitoring has primarily focused on those aspects that can be easily quantified and identified. Thus, work on non-implementation has to focus on those aspects of the Bologna Process on which we have relatively reliable information, i.e. those that have been monitored through the regular monitoring process. The Advisory Group that has been tasked with coming up with ways in which to deal with non-implementation has therefore agreed to focus its work on three key elements of the Bologna Process that meet these criteria. These commitments are seen by the group as forming the core of the commitments all countries signed up to when joining the EHEA. It should be clarified that these three commitments in no way represent all EHEA tools, reforms and common values, but they are felt to be central to the Bologna Process because, as the foundations of the EHEA, they allow recognition and mobility across the whole EHEA to function. Furthermore, their correct implementation is a necessary prerequisite to any higher education system that embraces the fundamental premises of the Bologna Process, including the ready mobility of staff, students, credits and degrees. Having put down that initial framework, the group still acknowledges that problems with implementation also lie elsewhere.

The three key commitments identified as the focus for the current work on non-implementation are as follows:

• A Three-Cycle System compatible with the QF-EHEA and scaled by ECTS:

  Here, the emphasis is on programmes that are structured according to the three-cycle system of the Bologna model and scaled by the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS). Qualifications achieved in each cycle should be defined in a self-certified National Qualification Framework (link provided in reference list) which itself is compatible with the Qualification Framework of the European Higher Education Area (QF-EHEA).

• Compliance with the Lisbon Recognition Convention (LRC):

  This key commitment calls for cross-border recognition practices to be in compliance with the Council of Europe/UNESCO Lisbon Recognition Convention (link provided in reference list), including that nations promote through the national information centres or otherwise the use of the Council of Europe/European Commission/UNESCO Diploma Supplement (link provided in reference list) or any other comparable document by the higher education institutions of the Parties. The Diploma Supplement should, according to Bologna principles, be issued automatically, free of charge and in a language that is widely read through the EHEA, as agreed by the Ministers in the Ministerial Conference in Berlin in 2003 (EHEA Ministerial Communiqué 2003).

• Quality Assurance in conformity with the European Standards and Guidelines (ESG):

  To meet this key commitment, countries should ensure that institutions granting degrees assure the quality of their programmes following the European Standards and Guidelines (ESG 2015). External quality assurance (be it at programme or institutional level) should be performed by agencies that have demonstrably complied with the standards and guidelines stipulated in the current ESG. This is best ensured where only those agencies registered on the European Quality Assurance Register for Higher Education (EQAR) are allowed to operate in the country, although if countries can show their agencies to be compliant with ESG standards through other means, such as a full membership of ENQA, that too is taken as a fulfilment of this key commitment.

Although the Advisory Group on Dealing with non-implementation has been mandated to propose a method by which to improve implementation of these three commitments, it should be emphasised that, ultimately, it is up to the EHEA Ministers to endorse and follow through any such recommendation and agree on the eventual procedure for coordinating and monitoring it. The proposal presented below has been prepared by the aforementioned Advisory Group for the Bologna Follow Up Group and outlines how support and monitoring of support for the key commitments could be managed within the ethos of the Bologna Process (for further information on the work of this group link in reference list).

Support for the Implementation of Key Bologna Commitments

The proposed support for the implementation of key Bologna commitments (Fig. 1) is a six-step repeating process with the central purpose to improve the implementation of the three key commitments of the Bologna Process. To reflect the aforementioned ethos of the process, it is built on principles of collaboration, peer-support, peer-review and peer-counselling. It aims to highlight exemplary implementation, as well as problems of non-implementation and to improve full and effective implementation of Bologna key commitments throughout the EHEA. Furthermore, it aims to make implementation of key commitments more transparent.

Fig. 1

The program of support being proposed to tackle non-implementation of key commitments in the Bologna Process. Please see text for a more detailed description

The timeframe proposed for a single six-step reporting cycle is the period between Ministerial Conferences, thus following the normal monitoring timeframe in the EHEA, although action plans and actions taken under its different steps may refer to a longer time frame. The process is foreseen to be facilitated by a coordinating group appointed during the Ministerial Conference, the main purpose of which is to coordinate and report back on the process, thus ensuring that countries that are failing to meet key commitments are fully supported in taking positive action to improve the situation.

The Six Steps of Support

The six steps of the proposed programme of support are expanded and explained below. Note that although taking place alongside the normal monitoring procedures of the EHEA, this cycle is distinct from and supplementary to it, albeit with a single shared step (submission of data in step 6)

• 1. Survey: The level of implementation of the key commitments is surveyed based on data submitted during the BFUG’s normal monitoring procedures, using the scoreboard indicators in the Bologna Implementation Report. The implementation of the key commitments is addressed in a supplementary report thereon. Timing: before the Ministerial Conference

• 2. The BFUG delegates of all EHEA countries are formally invited by the BFUG co-chairs to take part in one or more thematic peer groups, each focusing on one key commitment. Based on the information surveyed and reported in step 1, countries will be asked to self-identify their needs and expertise to commit to the mode through which they can contribute to the improved implementation of key commitments of the Bologna Process in the EHEA as a whole.

  • (a) Countries that self-identify as having successfully implemented a key commitment (indicated by none of the relevant scoreboard indicators being red and not more than one being orange) will be invited to suggest ways in which they are willing to support countries having difficulties with implementation of that key commitment, e.g. through peer-learning, reverse peer-review or other activities designed to share their examples of successful implementation and aid others in achieving the same.

  • (b) Countries that self-identify as not or insufficiently having implemented a key commitment (identified by having one or more red scoreboard indicator and two or more that are orange) will be invited to indicate what peer support would be beneficial to aid implementation and how it aims to use that support.

  Each country is expected to join at least one of the peer groups.

  As it is possible to face implementation challenges in one or two key commitments while having implemented the other(s) successfully, countries could indicate a need for peer-support in certain areas while offering peer-support in others, as appropriate.

  Timing: within one month after the Ministerial Conference

• 3. Response: The BFUG delegate sends a reply to the Bologna Implementation Coordination Group indicating what the country’s implementation goals are when it comes to the key commitments and nominates representatives to the peer groups in those areas where the country requires support or can offer support, respectively. The representative(s) should be people with responsibility for the key commitment concerned, and BFUG delegates are strongly encouraged to involve relevant stakeholders who could offer or be the recipients of peer-support or peer counselling in the area. In the peer groups, they will be able to obtain advice on how to reach these goals. Timing: before the first BFUG meeting of the new working period.

• 4. Peer support: At this point, peer-support will start. The Bologna Implementation Coordination Group facilitates the grouping of countries offering peer-support and those wishing to take advantage of such support into thematic peer support groups. Each peer group will be dedicated to supporting the implementation of a single key Bologna commitment. These peer groups will include both countries that have sufficiently implemented the key commitment concerned and countries coping with challenges to be addressed for full implementation. Based on the goals identified in step 3, each peer group designs its own action plan with specified activities and impacts for each country concerned, including the expected involvement of relevant stakeholders

  Timing: As all relevant implementation information is available before the preceding Ministerial Conference, this step should be initiated no later than after the first BFUG meeting following a Ministerial Conference.

• 5. Update: Each peer support group gives an annual update to the Bologna Implementation Coordination Group on how the countries collaborating in that group have used peer support to enhance or support implementation. The Bologna Implementation Coordination Group, in turn, produces a summary report for the BFUG.

• 6. Data: All EHEA countries submit their data for the next implementation report which will mark the starting point of a new cycle.

  The supplementary report on the implementation of key commitments (see step 1) will show current implementation alongside the level of implementation in the previous report for all countries. Submitted plans for the implementation of specific key commitments will be highlighted in the supplementary report.

The cycle of support is in itself not tied to the specific three commitments currently identified as a focus by the EHEA representatives. It merely provides an operational procedure through which such issues can be addressed and can be employed to tackle problems with implementation across the full range of Bologna Commitments and values.

The most notable problem with the model as proposed is that it contains no endpoint and no obvious consequences for those countries who are either unable or, more worryingly, unwilling to participate in it and for whom no improvement is noted over the course of the cycle. It is theoretically possible within the model as it stands that it becomes a perpetual cycle of “support” for countries in which no improvement is ever seen or judged likely. Having noted the near standstill that some countries have come to with regard to the implementation of some key commitments makes it necessary that an escalation or endpoint to the model be put forward for discussion and eventual decision by the EHEA ministers at their next conference in Paris in 2018.

Challenges of Monitoring and Indicators

As mentioned above, the 2015 Monitoring report makes it clear that a number of countries were facing challenges with implementing key commitments at the time when the data on which the report is based were collected. It is also evident that some traditional key indicators may need to be adapted to pick up on-the-ground implementation of the key commitments.

Information on the implementation of the first key commitment, on the three cycles and ECTS, is relatively problem free in this regard and revealed six higher education systems in need of targeted support in this area in 2015. The scorecard indicators reflecting implementation of the second commitment could be challenged to some degree, in that the Monitoring report mainly assesses the extent to which the principles of the LRC have been enshrined in law, rather than whether national cross-border recognition practices are in compliance with the Lisbon Recognition Convention. In many countries, institutional autonomy is, rightly or wrongly, seen as preventing national legislation on recognition of degrees when, in practice, the autonomic institutions may be applying the LRC fully and competently. A recent report on the monitoring of the LRC (Monitoring Implementation of the LRC 2016) gives a more nuanced view of recognition practices and could be used to clarify the picture on recognition of foreign qualifications nationally. The 2018 EHEA Monitoring report will include some new indicators that are better suited to specifically address this second key commitment.

Similarly, the third key commitment on quality assurance takes a wider approach to conformity with ESG than has hitherto been monitored. It is thus necessary to allow for that difference in monitoring that key commitment, either through the development of new monitoring criteria or by calling for further information from national representatives.

It is foreseen that a supplementary report on the implementation of these key commitments be issued alongside the main 2018 EHEA Implementation report, and the information in that report will inform further work on tackling non-implementation following the discussions of the EHEA Ministers in 2018. That report will, similar to the main report, draw not only on information submitted by BFUG representatives and the traditional sources of education statistics but also on supplementary information from the European Students’ Union (ESU) and the European University Association (EUA).

The European Higher Education Area at Crossroads

The debate on implementation within the European Higher Education Area is not a new one. In a report prepared for the Ministerial conference in Leuven/Louvain-la-Neuve in 2009, where the focus is on the Bologna Process beyond 2010, the concerns about the lack of implementation sound eerily familiar and could just as easily apply to a post-2020 EHEA: “Not all the objectives will have been reached by all the participating countries by 2010; it is, therefore, necessary that the Bologna Process should continue after 2010 so that its implementation can be finalized. First priority for the future should be given to completing the existing action lines.” (The Bologna Process revisited 2009, p. 5).

Almost a decade on, after near to two decades of the Bologna Process and 8 years of the European Higher Education Area, the EHEA ministers stand yet again at familiar crossroads. The choice lies between standing back, as has largely been done hitherto, and relying on national implementation of Bologna commitments, gradually bringing higher education systems closer together while offering peer-learning activities on disparate and broad aspects of the Bologna Process, hoping that, with time, political processes on a national level may choose to improve implementation. As a strategy, it has the merit of being non-confrontational, with a focus on voluntary participation but, as evidenced by recent consecutive implementation reports, sadly woefully ineffective. It also runs the risk of eventually causing the EHEA collaboration to fall of the political agenda of, at least, those countries for which implementation is less of a problem, effectively ending the process.

On the other hand, the ministers can cement the work carried out hitherto by actively focusing on targeted measures to improve their collaboration; through ensuring the implementation of the common set of commitments, the structural reforms and shared tools which have been agreed to and adopted at a political level in all member countries upon becoming part of the Bologna Process and the EHEA. Doing so involves first openly admitting that the EHEA is facing problems that it cannot solve through existing procedures, and secondly requires a targeted and increased effort by all member countries, those that lag behind, those who implement well, and those which have been able to go further. Such a measure will only work if there is a shared willingness to maintain the EHEA and bring it to its full fruition.

You can liken these crossroads to ones that fork in two directions.

Straight ahead is a road that looks (suspiciously) pleasant but not too much further on, the road forks into two or even three possible directions. Those who choose one will soon find themselves far away from those who choose the other(s). This is the road of the status quo where implementation problems are left unchallenged to eventually undermine the process, creating a two-tiered or multi-tiered EHEA with limited potential and an ever-increasing lack of trust between education systems.

Your other option is what looks initially like a precipitous obstacle course but as soon as you embark upon it you are joined by like-minded supporters who guide you on your journey and help you across the hurdles. As the path keeps on winding its way onwards, the road widens, the impediments shrink, and the ground is firm beneath your feet. This is the road of peer-supported measures to improve the implementation of Bologna tools and values and with it strengthen the cohesion and core of the European Higher Education Area.

At the meeting of EHEA Ministers in Paris in May 2018, the BFUG is likely to suggest that they consider taking that second road. That together, the Ministers help each other build a stronger EHEA by adopting a model that builds on the ethos of peer-support and collegiality that has been the strength of the Bologna Process, and that has the possibility, in the future, to set an example to other regions on how to ensure implementation of reform even without a strong legal framework.