THE EUROPEAN LEARNED PROFESSIONS AND THE EU HIGHER EDUCATION PROJECT

ABSTRACT

One of the most serious problems for those who are concerned with the structure and function of the power-knowledge nexus in contemporary Europe is the lack of a systematic scientific account of the rationale of the EU policy about both learned professions and higher education. The problem does not only stem from the still-living legacies of the past. It stems also from the EU need to provide EU governance with EU-oriented learned professionals in order to come to terms with the rising multidisciplinary complexity of EU decision-making and manage the challenges of current social, political and economic mainstreams. The paper deals with the above issues by focusing on the recent EU quest for expertising EU governance and governing professional EU expertise in a number of evolutionary stages: EU professional and higher education law-policy making; EU reaction towards the so-called ‘globalization wave’ as regards EU epistemic communities; EU ‘learning economy’ and ‘Bologna Convention’ models; the impact of the Nice Treaty on the re-assessment of European professional realms. The need for a European sociology of European professions is stressed in conclusion.

Keywords:

• EU higher education policy
• EU expert governance
• EU-oriented professionalism
• EU cultural capital
• EU science- and policy project

Acknowledgements

This study has been carried out within the framework of the Scientific Research Programme of Relevant National Interests ‘Observatory on Legal Formation’ COFIN-PRIN 2004 financed by Italian Ministry of Education and Research.

Notes

¹This example is not an abstract teaching case for law students. In March 2003, during a conference on European professional services, the EU Commissioner for competition stressed once again the necessity to enhance a deregulation policy for legal services in order to promote market competition. For the purpose he relied on data provided by research of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Two months later, in May 2003, the Consultative Committee of Forensic Orders, formally contested the method and merit of the OECD research as well as the whole argument of the EU Commissioner insofar as both did not consider that European professions and their services are also under the cover of the human and social rights of the Nice Charter (Alpa 2005). Diverging viewpoints about professional interests and values between EU Commissions and Professional Orders are not new. Totally new, by contrast, is the legal and political position of both parties as established by the Nice Charter. In fact, for the first time since the Rome Treaty professional issues cannot be thematized in formal-official legal terms only from a single one-dimensional perspective (i.e., market imperatives), but must be conceived and treated by taking into account the irrepressible relational entanglement between knowledge production, economic growth, institutional framework and social dynamics in any professional matter, including professional values and interests.