Innovationskraft trotz Vetospieler: Bildungspolitische Reformen im deutschen Föderalismus

German educational policy is a field in which significant reforms are necessary and where considerable pressure prevails. At the same time areas of education policy, especially higher education and vocational training are examples of joint decision making where actors at state- and federal level have considerable veto-power. The article explores this conflict: on the one hand a widely acknowledged necessity to act and on the other the assumed inability to reform. First, there is a brief overview of the research debate concerning the federal policy process. Two case studies of reform processes in educational policy are then examined; the so-called ‘Excellence Initiative’ in higher education and the reception of the European Qualifications Framework in Germany. These two examples show that the joint decision-making inherent in German federalism not only makes negotiations complicated and slows down the pace, but at the same time, surprisingly, the joint policy process between Bund and Länder enhances the intensity of policy change.