ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the development of a ‘European’ competence in higher education in order to assess the repercussions of this new supranational actor on intra-federal relations in Hochschulpolitik. In the 1980s, the European Community became a more important policy player in various areas which had previously been outside of its competence. In 1992 the Maastricht Treaty on the European Union brought this process one step forward by introducing more explicit reference to education and higher education. The socrates programme, launched in 1995 for a five-year period, is the first European framework programme covering all levels of education: its main actions target school co-operation, language learning, teacher training, open and distance learning and university co-operation. The competence of the Federation to ‘transfer sovereign powers to international institutions’, particularly to the European Community, includes the power to transfer rights, with the consent of the Bundesrat, of the Lander.
