Ireland has applied to join the Multilateral Treaty on the Automatic Recognition of Higher Education Qualifications, giving further backing to efforts to facilitate student mobility across Europe. The initiative, which began in 2019 (for more details on the process, see ACA Newsletter - Education Europe, October 2021), reflects a collective effort to build a more integrated and dynamic higher education community in Europe. 

The Treaty – which brings together Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia – allows higher education qualifications awarded in one participating country to be recognised at the same level in the others, without students having to go through separate recognition procedures. The agreement covers academic recognition and does not apply to professional recognition for access to regulated professions, which remains governed by existing EU regulations. 

The application was handed over on 11 May 2026 by James Lawless, Ireland’s Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, to Liesje Schreinemacher, Deputy Secretary-General of the Benelux Union, ahead of the Education, Youth, Culture and Sport Council in Brussels. Once Ireland’s accession process is completed, Irish higher education qualifications will fall under the same automatic recognition arrangements as those of the other participating countries.  

Ireland’s move follows Poland’s application in 2025 and reflects a growing commitment to automatic recognition as an instrument to remove administrative barriers between higher education systems. This is a signal to be welcomed because – despite years of convergence through the Bologna tools – the latest European Commission’s report shows that automatic recognition is not yet applied consistently in practice, with institutions in many countries still relying on their own assessment criteria.