Launching the Bologna Process in 1999 was a significant moment or achievement for Europe that continues to impact the present and future of the EU, and beyond, including 48 total participating countries. When this momentum jump-started on 19 June 1999 in the medieval university city in Italy, it was a year after the Sorbonne Declaration meeting of France, Germany, Italy, and the UK's ministers of education in Paris on 25 May 1998. At the time, there were 15 members of the EU, and the Cold War had been over for nearly a decade. A driving purpose of the Bologna Process and the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) was to complement the economic opportunity provided by the EU single market, as the EU would expand to the east in the next two decades. By providing a harmonized structure for academic degrees, quality assurance, and a framework for recognition of qualifications, the creation of an EHEA facilitates the mobility of graduates and researchers across the region of Europe.

This chapter sketches the historical evolution of higher education policy in Europe since the origins of integration in forming the EU following World War II. An assessment of higher education policy in Europe through the years provides a launching point from which to analyze the political and economic dimensions in the global governance of knowledge as well as the soft power influence of this initiative. Despite the differences in their economic, political, and social circumstances, the 28 countries in the EU and the 20 additional countries that have become participating members of the EHEA share educational values inherent in the Bologna Process. Each country must adopt the European Cultural Convention, which was ratified by the Council of Europe in 1954, to accede to the Bologna Process. The internalization of policies has led to new institutional frameworks, at the national and regional levels of higher education. Since the EHEA, created by the Bologna Process, is the largest regional integration scheme for higher education in the world, there are lessons to apply to higher education coordination efforts in other regions of the world.