The EU recommendation on academic quality and recognition aims to strengthen transparency, trust and mobility in the European Higher Education Area. ENQA intervenes, but the debate remains open.

On 26 March 2025, the Council of the European Union adopted a Recommendation (C/2025/3006) that is intended to profoundly influence the future of academic quality and recognition in European higher education. Published in Official Journal C 103/2025, the Recommendation on strengthening quality assurance and promoting automatic mutual recognition in higher education represents a strong political stance, which aims to bridge the persistent inconsistencies between the education systems of the Member States, promoting a unified vision of the European Education Area.

Although not legally binding, the recommendation has a strategic value for at least three reasons: it introduces clear indications on how to strengthen national quality assurance systems, reaffirms the centrality of the 2015 ESG standards, and urges States to build mechanisms for the automatic recognition of academic qualifications and periods of study within the Union.

Quality and recognition: a combination that is still fragile

The basic idea of the recommendation is that quality and recognition should be strengthened together. It is not enough to have shared technical standards if, in practice, qualifications obtained in one Member State are not automatically accepted by another. The current fragmentation creates barriers to student mobility, slows down the free movement of skills and limits the potential of the European Education Area.

In response to this situation, the Council proposes that Member States:

• Strengthen quality assurance structures, fully aligning them with 2015 ESG.
• Fostering mutual trust between national and transnational agencies.
• Implement the automatic recognition of qualifications, qualifications and credits acquired in other Member States.
• Increase transparency by regularly publishing the results of external evaluations.
• Support private higher education providers who comply with European standards.

The recommendation, in its structure, rejects a centralist logic. It recognises the educational sovereignty of the Member States but invites them to converge towards common instruments, without imposing a single operational model or reference agencies.

No monopoly, but a shared vision

The publication of the text has aroused interest throughout Europe, especially among quality assurance agencies and academic institutions. The ENQA (European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education) has issued an official position statement in which it welcomes the general objectives of the recommendation, but highlights some critical areas.

ENQA regretted that the recommendation does not explicitly mention agencies registered in the European Quality Assurance Register for Higher Education (EQAR), which the association says are a well-established reference for the independence and transparency of assessments.

However, it is important to clarify one central aspect of the debate: the Council recommendation does not seek to favour one association or register over others. On the contrary, the text adopts an inclusive language, speaking broadly of “quality assurance bodies operating in compliance with ESG”, leaving member states free to choose their interlocutors, provided that they comply with shared European standards.

In this sense, ENQA’s recognition position is understandable but must be interpreted in the broader context of institutional plurality and respect for the principle of fair competition. National or transnational agencies wishing to operate in the European Education Area must be able to do so without necessarily having to join a single organisation or be registered in a single register. It is substantial compliance with ESG standards, not membership in a specific network, that is the real criterion for legitimacy.

Academic mobility and transparency as priorities

The recommendation insists on two strategic axes: facilitating mobility and improving transparency. In the first case, we invite the construction of legal and procedural mechanisms that allow students to have their qualifications and credits automatically recognized in other member countries. This objective requires a great deal of harmonisation, but it is essential to make the free movement of competences effective.

In the second case, states are asked to make the results of the assessments public, create accessible databases, monitor the effectiveness of quality systems and ensure that private providers are also included in the assurance processes, as long as they comply with ESG.

A crucial passage of the Recommendation also concerns the recognition of foreign agencies: Member States are encouraged to accept the results of evaluations carried out by agencies registered in other countries, avoiding duplication and strengthening mutual trust.

A new balance between autonomy and integration

The EU Council’s recommendation should be read as an attempt to rebalance the tensions between national autonomy and European integration. It is not intended to create a central quality authority, nor to standardise evaluation processes in a rigid manner. Rather, it aims to establish minimum conditions of compatibility, so that the diversity of educational models does not result in inefficiency, closure or lack of credibility.

The future of quality in European higher education will therefore depend on the ability of national systems to cooperate without losing their identity, adopting comparable tools and mutually recognising the training courses offered.

One recommendation, many challenges

The Council’s approach is, ultimately, pragmatic and inclusive. It does not privilege any structure, but asks for consistency, responsibility and transparency. ENQA’s criticisms, while legitimate, cannot obscure the fact that the recommendation promotes an open ecosystem, where quality is defined by common standards and not by institutional acronyms.

For higher education actors, the challenge is not to enter or remain in a network, but to concretely demonstrate compliance with ESG, offering guarantees of reliability, independence and orientation towards continuous improvement.