The Bologna Process and the EHEA – A New European Normative Regime?

Introduction: In the last 50 years the academic community has tried to conceptualize Europe's "Power" in order to understand its political nature. On the one hand, the EU has been perceived as an economic giant, and on the other hand as a political dwarf whose political power does not fit its economic abilities (Medrano, 1999: 155(.This paper uses Regime Theory as a heuristic base which enable a very comprehensive explanation for the creation, institutionalization, function and growth of international cooperation, through which the EU convey its global political and normative influence. The international regime functions in this matter as a mechanism which ties up the European regionalism process and the European Normative Power theory (NPE)(Manners, 2002).By pinpointing this mechanism the paper wishes to shed a light on the spot where regional becomes global, and Europe turns from a dwarf to a giant