The article posits that the institutionalisation of quality assurance within European higher education is largely attributable to the reshaping of power relations by means of practices that are very similar to the open method of coordination. All the major parties involved in this process – universities, governments, the European Commission and quality-assurance agencies – have been able to gain from it. The whole process is open to scrutiny in the central documents of the Bologna process: following the formation of a common ‘truth’ about the European situation, it has been possible to move forward and reshape power through normative procedures.