Development of European Cooperation in the Field of Higher Education: Focusing on Conflict between Intergovernmental Cooperation and Supranational Integration Rika KOBATA This paper examines the history of cooperation at the European level in the field of higher education, especially paying attention to the conflict between supranationalism and intergovernmentalism. Despite the progress toward EU integration, European states have shown particular attachment to the national sovereignty in the field of higher education, which has a close connection with national identity. Therefore, in the Treaty of Rome, which established the European Economic Community in 1957, no provision was made for higher education. Instead, ministers worked together in an intergovernmental organisation, the Council of Europe. In the 1970s, however, the European Community replaced the Council of Europe as a main framework for cooperation. The EC Ministers of Education met for the first time in 1971 and the next decade was characterised by emergence of various Community actions, such as Erasmus, Lingua and Tempus. When the Treaty on European Union came into force in 1993, a new article was introduced as a legal basis for Community actions in the field of education. But according to this, the Community could only supplement the actions of Member States while respecting their responsibility. This was a result of the Member States' resistance to any attempt to develop a supranational competence in this field. The situation began to change at the end of the 1990s, when some European countries launched an entirely new initiative to harmonise their own higher education systems. This is known as the Bologna Process. At first, it was a purely intergovernmental cooperation established outside the EU and without the participation of the European Commission. With its development and institutionalisation, however, the Commission was included in the follow-up structure and started to provide technical expertise and financial supports to the process. This can be best described as an intergovernmental cooperation embracing certain aspects of the Community, which created a new dynamism in the higher education policy in Europe through the political will of the European states and various resources of the Commission.