Dirk van den Auweele and Randall Lesaffer faithful too its long time connection with the French intellectual approach and university model. The reorientation in Flanders is most real on the structural and organisational levels, but is not without consequence on a more intellectual levels either. Inside the Flemish universities, all united in the Flemish Universities Council, it is very fashionable and inviting to look for inspiratic'in in the Netherlands each time the new legal and political - read financial - situation confronts universities with a new choice. These developments imply that the change has been more radical in Flanders than it has been in the French speaking community so that the positions of Roman lawand legal historv have been more severely weakened in the northern part of the country than in the southern part. In view of the close interconnection of university education and research, this evolution is also alarming for future research possibilities. It is of the utmost importance for the future of legal historical research that it keeps the existing connection with university education. This implies that a strong presence of Roman lawand legal history in university curricula is a necessary condition for the survival of research. Exactly on this point, the recent past has not been too bright and short termperspectives are not favourable, certainly not if one keeps the influence of the Dutch model in mind. In the Netherlands, reforms led to the reduction of legal history in the curriculum, the integration of Roman law and legal history, the reduction of the general curriculum in the law schools from five to four years with due consequences for the position of meta-juridical lectures. The less courses and lectures on Roman law and legal history are provided for, the harder it will become to obtain research funding. The too small amount of scholars involved with the two disciplines will also become a problem. All this is no pessimism. It is an evolution that is actually taking place and more dark clouds are gathering. For financial reasons, a new general reform of university structures and curricula — a rationalisation - is threatening the Flemish universities. It is not unimaginable that the law school curriculum would be reduced from five to four years as it was done in the Netherlands. This would imply the further reduction of meta-juridical and non-juridical lectures and the further loss of the intellectual and scientific approach at university law schools. Therefore, such a reformcould also require establishing a real postgraduate, pre-doctoral training preparing for an academic career. Romanists and legal historians have to anticipate that so that they can eventually attain a strong position in these new curricula. Nevertheless, such a development must be deplored because it would lead to a less intellectual and more narrowtraining for the vast majority of our jurists and to a sniping de-democratisation of ’real’ university schooling. The marginalisation of Roman law and legal history within the law schools in consequence of recent curriculum reform, forms undoubtedly the main 274
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