In tandem with its EU Council Presidency, Slovenia is also presiding the intergovernmental Bologna reform process  - aimed at establishing the European Higher Education Area – in which 46 European countries take part. As the presiding country, Slovenia chairs the meetings of the Bologna Follow-up Group and its Committee.

The Bologna Follow-up Group coordinates the process at the international level and, on the authority of competent ministers, draws up and implements the work programme between one ministerial conference and the next. According to the London Communiqué adopted by the Ministers, the Bologna Follow-up Group’s top priorities at present are to evaluate the implementation of the set objectives ten years after the signature of the Bologna declaration and, at the same time, to frame a proposal for the further development of the Bologna process after 2010 and for the vision of the European Higher Education Area in 2020.

The agenda of the Bologna Follow-up Group Meeting in March will include the adoption of certain important decisions, including decisions on the criteria for the selection of independent external evaluators to assess the Bologna process in this ten-year period, on the plans for and organisation of discussions concerning the development of the Bologna process over the next decade, and on the content and the host of the extraordinary formal ministerial conference in 2010.