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Four words summarize the Bologna process: credits, diplomas, quality and mobility. They revolutionize Europe’s higher education, hitherto rooted in a very long tradition and a strong diversity. The text exposes the considerable challenges faced by Europe’s higher education and identifies which could be the specific benefits induced by the Bologna momentum. At the EU level, Bologne could boost Europe’s potential of innovation and creativity within a more challenging and globalized world. Bologna could also entice each institution to become more effective as a result of more systematic formal external evaluation, but also more informal pressure by more mobile students, researchers and professors. The paper also enumerates the main forces and weaknesses of Belgium’s French-Speaking universities. Research and teaching quality attested by good rankings in international surveys, the recent renewal of the teaching staff, the tradition of openness towards the rest of world form its key assets. The weak points are the small size of the territory, the relative decline of French as an international language, a certain resistance to change, and, last but not least, the lack of financial resources.