Starting from July 1st, 2010, Romania has taken over the responsibility of hosting the Bologna Secretariat, formerly being provided by the Benelux countries. On behalf of the Romanian Bologna Secretariat, we would very much like to thank our colleagues from the former Secretariat for all of their excellent work and effort throughout the past three years.

Together with the technical Bologna Secretariat Handover, the Romanian Ministry of Education, Research, Youth and Sports organized The Ministerial Meeting Marking the Handover of the Bologna Secretariat from Benelux to Romania, as host of the 2012 Bologna Ministerial Conference, meeting that took place in Bucharest, on the 5th of July 2010.

We are honoured that the event was attended by Pascal Smet - the Flemish Minister of Education and Myqerem Tafaj - the Albanian Minister of Education, as Co-Chairs of the European Higher Education Area, accompanied by their delegations, as well as Barbara Weitgruber, on behalf of the Austrian Ministry of Science and Research, and as former Chair of the International Openness Working Group.

It is also an honour for us to use this opportunity to introduce Prof. Luminita Nicolescu that starting with July 1^st, 2010, will chair the International Openess Working Group.

Probably the most significant moment of the Official Handover Ceremony was that when, on behalf of the former Bologna Secretariat, Cornelia Racké handed over the “torch” of the Secretariat of the Bologna Follow-up Group to Ligia Deca, the coordinator of the new Bologna Secretariat.

With this occasion, the official website of the European Higher Education Area, http://www.ehea.info, was launched with the technical support of UEFISCDI. The Bologna Secretariat and the BFUG members will take all the necessary measures to assure a permanently up-to-date information on this online communication channel.