Quality assurance in higher education: European cooperation

In its communication on the Council common position on European cooperation in quality assurance in higher education, the Commission considers that the Council text is generally acceptable, as it retains the spirit of most of Parliament's amendments. The Commission regrets, however, that a large part of the initial proposal setting out the principles upon which national systems of quality assessment and quality assurance should be based have been transferred to an annex and are no longer part of the instrument itself. It also comments that the Council's decision to omit a paragraph providing for the Commission to submit proposals to strengthen quality assurance, affects only the Council. It reserves the right to present any proposals of this type it feels will help strengthen cooperation between the Member States in this field. �