Russia and Belarus: A litmus test for the Bologna Process

In the last decade, the fundamental values of higher education – academic freedom, institutional autonomy, academic integrity, the participation of students and staff in university governance and the public responsibility for and of higher education – have received careful attention in the European Higher Education Area (EHEA).

The commitment to safeguarding the fundamental values in EHEA member countries has been continuously underscored since the 2015 Yerevan Ministerial Communique. The EHEA governance structures have also provided a necessary space for dialogue and peer learning on the topic, for example, in the Task Force under the Working Group on Monitoring (2018-2022) and the Working Group on Fundamental Values (2020-2024).

Ironically, at the same time that the concept of fundamental values was established in the Bologna Process de jure, it became challenged de facto when two members of the EHEA invaded a third one.

Russian aggression

In 2014, Russia invaded and temporarily occupied territories that were part of Ukraine according to international law – namely, the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Eight years later, Russia launched a full-scale war on Ukraine with the help of Belarus. Russia and Ukraine were governmental members of the Bologna Process at the time of both Russian invasions, and Belarus joined the EHEA shortly before the attack in 2022.

Russian wars in Ukraine have taken the lives of many Ukrainian students and staff at higher education institutions (HEIs) and pushed academic freedom back in its temporarily occupied territories.

In all, 44 Ukrainian HEIs have become displaced and run the risk of losing their institutional and legal identity through mergers with other Ukrainian universities.

Limitations on public funding to Ukrainian HEIs in times of war have constrained their financial autonomy. The need for alternative funding sources has become particularly strong, as University World News reports that one in five higher education institutions in Ukraine are either damaged or destroyed.

The consequences of the Russian wars in Ukraine call for further questions about whether and how the commitment of EHEA ministers responsible for higher education to “fully respect the fundamental values of higher education and democracy and the rule of law” (according to the Rome Communique of 2020) can be implemented in practice.

To suspend or exclude

The Bologna Follow-Up Group (BFUG) kept silent in its official minutes about the 2014 Russian attack on Ukraine until 2020 when Ukraine itself raised the matter during its first BFUG co-chairmanship in Kyiv.

Meanwhile, Russia enjoyed all the regular rights of participation in the EHEA work and structures during that period, including hosting the BFUG board meeting in September 2017 and having its higher education system featured in the periodic Bologna Process Implementation Reports.

Only after the full-scale military invasion of 2022 did the EHEA provide a consistent and meaningful response to the war atrocities carried out by Russia and Belarus. In less than two months after the start of the invasion, an informal group formed in an ad hoc way by the Czech Republic, Iceland, Norway and the Council of Europe began the work of getting the BFUG to suspend the right to representation of Russia and Belarus.

Notably, the initial request of the Ukrainian minister of education and science called for the exclusion, rather than the suspension, of Russia and Belarus.

The BFUG mandate was and is still limited solely to decisions about suspension. This happened in the BFUG Strasbourg meeting in April 2022, where Russia and Belarus had their rights to participation suspended in all the structures and activities of the EHEA, including the BFUG, working groups, task forces, peer learning groups and similar structures.

Yet, Russia and Belarus have remained EHEA members until now, as the BFUG never called for an extraordinary ministerial conference to decide on their exclusion. Although Russia claimed it was leaving the Bologna Process, as reported by University World News, it has never submitted any document to the competent EHEA authorities about its wish to withdraw.

The agenda for Tirana

The EHEA ministers responsible for higher education will gather in Albania in a few months, on 29 to 30 May 2024, paving the way for the implementation of the Bologna Process over the following years. They will adopt the Tirana Ministerial Communique and, hopefully, approve the definition of the EHEA’s fundamental values.

The question remains, however, whether the Bologna Process has the will to practise what it preaches. The BFUG mandate did not allow it to decide on the exclusion of Russia and Belarus from the EHEA in 2022.

Such a decision can, however, be taken by the EHEA ministers who have the right and responsibility to steer EHEA development – based on the principles of human rights, democracy and the rule of law. With this in mind, it is unthinkable that Russia and Belarus would have remained only suspended, rather than excluded, if they had attacked
some European Union member states instead of Ukraine.

The current draft of the Tirana Ministerial Communique gives little reason to expect that a decision on exclusion will be taken, given that it cites the aim of maintaining the suspension of Russia and Belarus.

Yet, two regular BFUG meetings are scheduled in its current working period and the BFUG is able to call for extraordinary meetings.

Whether the 47 ministers from Europe and beyond will part ways with Russia and Belarus is a litmus test for the Bologna Process’ legitimacy with regard to the implementation of its key commitments and, in a broader sense, to its own existence.

Kateryna Suprun is a doctoral researcher at Tampere University in Finland and a national representative of Ukraine in the Bologna Follow-Up Group (2018-2023). Jussi Kivistö is a professor of higher education management and head of the administrative studies unit at Tampere University. This article summarises the authors’ presentation of the upcoming article “The Future of Fundamental Values in the EHEA: Russian war on Ukraine and re-thinking safeguards against non-democracies” delivered on 25 March 2024 at the Bologna Process Researchers’ Conference in Bucharest.