Do not forget the fifth freedom
The Single Market Strategy should focus not only on the four freedoms, but also on delivering the fifth freedom as proposed by Letta and Draghi.
As President Von der Leyen said in ‘Europe’s Choice’, Europe must “Put research and innovation at the heart of our economy [and] tackle the skills and labour gap” to ensure our prosperity.
The Single Market Strategy action plan should include an action on the fifth freedom. An action plan focused only on the four freedoms will not "fully exploit the potentials of the single market to boost Europe’s productivity”, as the roadmap intends.
As spoken by Lettta and Draghi:
Letta and Draghi both called out this shortcoming of the Single Market. As so clearly argued by Letta, “four freedoms, while still crucial, are not sufficient to harness the full potential of the EU. Adding a fifth freedom to the previous ones is an indispensable extension of the established framework”. Draghi also states that “policies promoting research and innovation should be open, inclusive and readily accessible to researchers, businesses and regions”. The removal of barriers to cross-border movement of science and research is indispensable to expand Europe's competitiveness and innovation capacities.
Define the fifth freedom
One action must be to define the fifth freedom. The definition of the European Research Area as written in the TFEU (Art. 179) provides a good basis for the definition, i.e. the “free circulation of researchers, scientific knowledge and technology”. The definition should be complemented with education, because the free movement of knowledge and workers depends on the educational sector, e.g. through the recognition of skills and qualifications. This is crucial given that the Single Market Strategy will complement the Union of Skills.
Remove obstacles
As a second action, the Single Market Strategy must help remove obstacles to the mobility of researchers and educators and ensure the free flow of data, research, and innovation results in the entire EU internal market. Therefore, the Single Market Strategy must match the ambitions of the upcoming European Research Area Act and Innovation Act to maximise the EU’s competitiveness.
