This article does not follow the widespread assumption or even conviction that the Bologna process is the most important reform of higher education in Europe in modern times. Instead it analyses the Bologna process in the context of previous and ongoing programmes, measures and activities by European bodies and national governments aiming at mobility, exchange and cooperation in European higher education like "Bologna" does. The attempt by the national ministers of higher education to establish the Bologna process as an intergovernmental process explicitly outside the EU is scrutinised. In assessing the achievements of the Bologna process it is argued that it is defeating its own aims by over-expansion and programmatic overload. The concluding assessment of the implementation of "Bologna" in Germany looks at the inconsistencies and problems of the process rather than supporting the official success story.