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Maastricht European Studies Papers 2007/07 L. Unbehauen
Van der Wende, 2004, p. 353). The apparent policy consensus, encouraged by the
Commission, is challenged by national actors who raise objections in more sensitive areas.
Six of these caveats are especially pressing. The first is the possible imbalance between
incoming and outgoing international students (p. 353). How many international scholars are
entering a system, will definitely depend on the attractiveness and status of the respective
national higher education structure. Consequently, domestic policy-makers in countries with
weaker and less reputable education systems fear that this could lead to a so-called brain-drain
of their highly skilled student force. However, it should be acknowledged that this can also
give the necessary push for such systems to modernize. Furthermore, one should keep in mind
that most students, even if studying abroad, will in most cases return back home after
receiving their degree because of cultural and family ties.
The second area of national resentment is the restructuring of the national educational
systems and the incompatibility of the new two-cycle arrangement with the traditional degree
structure. Despite the easy transition in some countries, others have been more reluctant to
introduce the Bachelor and Master structure. While the frontrunner Netherlands have
introduced the ECTS and two-cycle system already in 2002/03 and have adjusted 82% of its
academic programs (Leegwater, 2005, p. 5), Germany can only offer 26, 3 % of its degree
programs according to the new system. The new structures exist parallel to the ‘traditional’
German degrees, such as Magister and Diplom (Galler & Hendriks, 2005, p. 1). The belated
switch to the two-cycle system, which is planned by 2009/10, is due to the decentralized
structure of the German higher education sector and the Kulturhoheit (cultural autonomy) of
Germany’s Länder who can act as veto players in the restructuring process. In the UK the
two-cycle structure is not easily compatible with its traditional two-year foundation degrees
and in Portugal there is disagreement on the duration of the first cycle. Greece is lagging
behind, also due to the resistance to restructuring by its academic elite and student bodies.
Here academics are frightened that pressures such as internationalization and globalization
could ultimately result in the degradation of the public university (Reichert & Tauch, 2003).
Another national concern, voiced by the Portuguese scholars Amaral and Magalhães is
the possible loss of the most unique feature of the European Higher Education system: its
diversity. The argument is that harmonization and the introduction of a more uniform and
centrally planned European core curriculum, as recommended in the 2001 ‘Tuning
Educational Structures in Europe’ project 6 , will increase bureaucracy and will stifle program
6 The tuning project was launched on May 4 th 2001with financial support of the Commission to exchange
information and to pinpoint some common subject-based reference points, curriculum content, learning
outcomes and teaching methods in order to advance the quality of European higher education. In the area of
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