Experimenting with Intergovernmentalism, 1961–69

Abstract

The 1960s were a turbulent period for higher education in Europe — both within European Community (EC) institutions and within the universities. At the start of the decade, the issue of higher education moved from its position as a potential policy area for Community structured cooperation, with the European University at its centre — an idea proposed in 1960 — to an issue in which the European executives were instructed not to intervene. Yet in 1969, the issue of education, including higher education, was back on the agenda of EC heads of state and government. When their predecessors had set the conditions for higher education intergovernmental cooperation at the Bonn Summit of July 1961, there were few grounds to predict that the issue would become an established policy domain within ten years. This chapter recounts how and why that reversal took place.