Social, political and economic developments in the European Union (EU) can be situated in a field of tension between maintaining the sovereignty of nation states on the one hand and undermining this sovereignty by supranational institutions, subnational governments and the market on the other. This paradox is the result of a new kind of polity, called 'multi-level governance' (see for example Hooghe & Marks 2001, De Wit 2003). The EU as a multilayered polity implies that a multitude of institutions (not only the national governments) can act with relative autonomy to solve common problems. The field of higher education cooperation is also characterised by this paradox (Huisman & Van der Wende 2004). On the one side, cooperation in the area of education is strongly intergovernmental in nature and it is clear that the member states still can pursue their own education policy. In official documents of the EU the autonomy of the member states is strongly emphasised and the EU is seldom accorded a more than complementary role (Verbruggen 2001). On the other side however, there is a dynamic in European higher education without precedent. A clear example of this dynamic is the Bologna Declaration and the ambition to realise "the European Higher Education Area". The ministers of education of the EU member (and associated) states together with the vice chancellors have agreed to pursue a number of goals in line with those of the European education programmes. But the goal to establish 'comparable education systems' was new and entails that the Bologna process could inevitably lead to a harmonisation of European education systems. Yet, can we really speak of harmonisation or do apparently similar developments in the EU member states in fact hide meaningful differences (Tauch 2004, Wächter 2004)? After all, the autonomy of the institutions involved could still mean that each one of them gives another interpretation to what 'harmonisation' should entail. Therefore, the basic question of our paper is whether it can be empirically validated that convergence is growing in a number of (sub-) fields of higher education policy, or that we can still speak of a relevant divergence. Research designOur paper is based on the results of a content analysis of policy documents (among which the preparatory documents for the European summit in Bergen in May 2005). We illustrate the impact of the Bologna Declaration on the higher education policy in three member states. Our data relate to Flanders and its direct neighbours: the French Community in Belgium, Germany (c.q. Nordrhein-Westphalia) and the Netherlands.Taking the goals of the Bologna Declaration as a starting point, we analyse recent developments in four domains:1. introduction of a bachelor master structure2. introduction of a flexible credit system3. mobility of students and teachers4. quality assuranceThe analysis shows that initiatives in the framework of Bologna did indeed lead to a remarkable convergence. Remarkable, because harmonisation has always been rejected from the beginning of European cooperation in education onwards. After Bologna (and Prague and Berlin) harmonisation is much less of a taboo, or at least is more a reality than was ever considered possible before Bologna. But then again, we find a divergence that is just as striking. Of course we must consider the presupposed end date to realise an open area of education (i.e. 2010), but recent developments lead us to the conclusion that the problems which the Bologna process should address (like a lack of comparability, too little mobility,…) are not solved (yet). At the most, a framework is created in which new developments can take place more easily.