This opinion piece aims to provide a case for complementing the four existing freedoms of the European Single Market, free movement of goods, services, people, and capital, with the Fifth Freedom – the “freedom of knowledge”.5
We are living in strange times. Few would disagree with that statement. We live in times of increasing uncertainty and times when one has the feeling that Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was right in saying “What experience and history teach is this — that nations and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted upon any lessons they might have drawn from it.” However, that statement is tinged with the scepticism that humankind always falls into the same traps and cannot change or, perhaps more troubling, that we cannot take our future into our own hands as we must. We should empower and encourage all Europeans to become actively engaged. As Slavoj Žižek says, “political issues are too serious to be left only to politicians”.
The European Union is at a strategic crossroads. Broadly and simply stated, there are two alternative ways:
Going on the defensive, and becoming more introverted, which at present sadly seems to be a strong trend. Much current EU policy focuses on an interpretation of security policy that is narrow and predominantly anchored in defence policy and military might. This is currently reflected in member state financial packages and the political funnelling of large portions of the EU’s budget into military defence.
However, to become both a strategic power that is well-recognised and taken seriously, and that protects Europeans from future shocks and stresses, Europe needs to do more than that. It needs to fast-track a larger and stronger system of shared security – preparing for the conflicts and the social, economic, and environmental risks before us.
For decades, the complaint most often heard in European policy, is that while the EU is a major economic power – maintaining its status as an important trade partner and leading the world in providing help to those in need – it is not properly engaged nor recognised in international geostrategic relations. Building our strategic importance and soft power would require a higher level of integration in at least a few additional areas: fiscal, economic, foreign, environmental alongside defence policy. Most importantly, European defence policy should be focused not only on military might, but on building a Positive Peace, too. This approach is forward-looking and moves beyond conflict and violence, while simultaneously enabling better economic and societal outcomes. In addition to the avoidance of violence, Positive Peace is also associated with many other characteristics that are socially desirable, including greater economic prosperity, higher measures of wellbeing, and improved levels of gender equality and environmental performance – all of which are goals shared in Earth for All: A Survival Guide for Humanity.6
Everything starts with our values. Mario Draghi’s 2024 report on European competitiveness and the future of the European Union is clear in this respect. He writes, “Europe’s fundamental values are prosperity, equity, freedom, peace and democracy in a sustainable environment. The EU exists to ensure that Europeans can always benefit from these fundamental rights. If Europe can no longer provide them to its people – or must trade off one against the other – it will have lost its reason for being.”
What we wish to argue here is that one of the main ingredients of this approach should be strengthening the EU’s Single Market by including the introduction of the Fifth Freedom – the “freedom of knowledge”, meaning the free and equal mobility of scientists and other knowledge workers, of knowledge itself, and of the means of research across EU member states. Without the Fifth Freedom, Europe will not be able to unleash its full potential for innovation in all political domains, nor build a market that is robust and resilient to future shocks and stresses, while at the same time promoting peace with its neighbours and globally.
It cannot be emphasized enough that we no longer live in mere industrial societies. We live in a “knowledge society,” by which we do not mean ordinary or common language, but scientific knowledge. The term was coined and developed by US sociologists Robert Lane and Daniel Bell, and later appropriated by Jacques Delors, President of the European Commission (1985-1995).
Today, scientific expertise permeates all dimensions of human life. Our innovations – our advancement of medicine, our development of new materials from physical and chemical research, our improvement of mental health practices informed by psychology and psychiatry, our continuing improvement of our educational systems, our cultural and historical understandings, and our societal and political decisions – have all, to date, profited from the soft and the hard sciences. It is through scientific innovations that we have enhanced the quality of life across the globe.
Science feeds back into our educational systems, which are inconceivable without it, and which support and strengthen our values. Educated and well-connected citizens across Europe are the best guarantee for competitiveness but most importantly for freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law, peace, and stability – in essence the values on which the European Union is based. These essential and central values, though increasingly under threat, are absolutely worth fighting for. They are also the best guarantee to equip the European Union for a sustainable future where European leaders continue to value science-based decision-making for the betterment of society.
However, in an era where information technology increasingly dominates and can be abused to create disinformation that threatens our shared values, Europe grapples with the challenge of keeping pace with swift global digital and technological advancements. The great innovation potential of European scientific communities is still too often slowed down by national interests, rules, and practices. As Draghi’s report states: “If Europe cannot become more productive, we will be forced to choose. We will not be able to become, at once, a leader in new technologies, a beacon of climate responsibility and an independent player on the world stage. We will not be able to finance our social model. We will have to scale back some, if not all, of our ambitions. This is an existential challenge.”
To avoid that negative scenario, developing and strengthening the Single Market is critical. This is why the aptly titled report "Much More Than a Market" by former Italian PM Enrico Letta (2024) is so fundamental, as it emphasizes the need to both enable and empower the European Single Market to achieve a sustainable future and secure prosperity for all EU citizens.
Originally, the Single Market was established to strengthen European integration by eliminating trade barriers, ensuring fair competition, and promoting cooperation and solidarity among member states. It facilitates the free movement of goods, services, people, and capital through harmonisation and mutual recognition, thereby enhancing competition and fostering innovation. Since its foundation, the European Single Market has been a cornerstone of unprecedented economic growth, convergence, social progress, and enhancement of living standards across the continent. It continues to be a cornerstone of European integration and values, serving as a powerful catalyst for growth and prosperity, as well as for solidarity and peace. Although the Single Market is often perceived as a project of a technical nature, on the contrary, it is inherently political and is Europe’s lighthouse project. Europe does not need to go far to rediscover the ethos behind its founding. The origins of the European project stem from the Schuman declaration of 1950, and Monnet’s original proposal for a unified coal and steel community to overcome the repeated conflicts between Germany and France.
These foundations are even more relevant in a time of growing geopolitical divergences with the United States. It is by tying their economic conditions together, and by creating common interests from defence to economic development, that member states can create their own path towards an alternative future that is wholly European and not forced by a fear of not following the plans born across the Atlantic. The endurance and resilience of the Single Market is thus inextricably tied to the EU's original, strategic objectives of ensuring security, economic stability, the thriving of its citizens, and their insulation from potential shocks and stresses. The EU should never be considered a completed endeavour, but rather continued as an ongoing project.
The European Single Market has now existed for several decades, its presence especially felt in the areas of services, labour, and capital. However, the European Union continues to function merely as the sum of national economies, which protect parochial monopolies that are historically, culturally, and linguistically conditioned. This weakens the EU’s competitiveness, since its economy is significantly more open externally than the economies of its key global competitors.
It is therefore imperative that we continue improving the Single Market by optimising feedback loops and functionality across member states. This should be done through a rule of law architecture that addresses a whole of governance approach and the multi-layers of effective governance from local to federal level. Such an architecture must be anchored in knowledge, innovation, and value-based decision-making. Today’s rule-based international order faces serious challenges, entering a phase marked by the resurgence of power politics that all-too easily ignores the rule of law, including international law. In this uncertain – even dangerous – situation, it is essential to continue investing in the enhancement and promotion of European standards and values by reinforcing the Single Market's role as a robust platform that supports innovation, safeguards consumer interests and social values, promotes sustainable development, and protects our democracies and peace.
The Letta Report discusses the evolving nature of the Single Market in response to crises and global challenges, advocating for its continuous development and adaptation via the full realization of the Fifth Freedom. In addition to advocating for the Fifth Freedom, it also demands to enhance financial integration through a Savings and Investments Union and to improve today’s regulatory framework for a more dynamic market. The report also highlights the importance of addressing barriers to market access, promoting social cohesion, and ensuring that all citizens benefit from the Single Market. It calls for collective action among EU institutions, member states, and citizens to revitalize the Single Market and strengthen European competitiveness.
In order to guarantee that the EU remains a knowledge- and value-based Union that enhances its first four freedoms – securing the free movement of goods, services, capital, and people without borders or limitations – the same such movement of scientists, scientific research, and expertise must happen sooner rather than later.7 Also, the Fifth Freedom now would complement and strengthen recent efforts to make Europe a safe harbour for talent from the US and other parts of the world.
The Fifth Freedom is not a mere privilege given to our scientists, but is about enhancing scientific knowledge and scientific policy advice for our societies. It builds upon recognizing how the sciences have dramatically and radically changed our societies for the better in the last five centuries: from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment; from the Industrial Revolution up to the development of modern democracies; and most recently, to our current way of life. Knowledge and scientific prowess has led not only to new technologies and to economic growth, but also changed our social interaction, our institutions, and our political and moral ideals. The freedom of investigating, exploring, and creating for the benefit of humankind without national borders and limitations should have, for a long time, already been a reality within the European Union. It isn’t at the level that it should be to meet the complexity of today’s challenges. This must change now. To be competitive innovators while also maintaining our way of life, we Europeans must act now, collectively as enlightened politicians, business leaders, and scientists across all disciplines.
Europe is in the midst of a perfect “innovation storm” and could use it to its advantage. Innovative US companies, foreign talent, and start-ups are looking to relocate, while European entrepreneurs are no longer looking to leave. Providing a safe haven for these entrepreneurs with a stable innovation policy, legal certainty and fiscal packages are of critical importance.
Instead of undoing rules and regulations that protect people and the planet, Europe should be focusing on unlocking its creative and technological potential. Central to this effort is establishing the Fifth Freedom, in a way that encompasses several fields, including research, innovation, data, competences, knowledge, and education. This requires, importantly, creating a European Knowledge Commons – a digital platform providing access to research, data, and educational resources. Such a Commons would also have the function of investing in cutting-edge public and private research infrastructure, harmonising digital standards, and fostering cross-border collaboration to maximise the talent and employment pool, thereby offering attractive conditions for skilled professionals and entrepreneurs. With such a Commons in place, Europe could focus on today and tomorrow’s most important societal challenges, such as climate change, biodiversity losses and their impact on the planet, the spread of disinformation and other attacks on our democratic values, and the protection of the ideals of the European integration project. In short, by means of the Fifth Freedom, we would unleash science’s full potential to apply truly systemic approaches to our policymaking.
A properly implemented and complementary approach enabling the Fifth Freedom would constitute top-down and bottom-up strategies. This would bring all stakeholders on the journey and ensure non-elitist narratives that clearly explain why science and evidence-based decision-making is the best means of innovation and resilience planning for Europeans. This will avoid any disparity or disenfranchisement between citizens and politicians and can create the Fifth Freedom in a way where all Europeans benefit.
The Fifth Freedom should also stimulate innovation and foster the development of leading industrial ecosystems capable of producing entities of global importance within Europe. In relation to the Clean Industrial Deal, the Fifth Freedom strengthens research and innovation to service people and ecosystems, promoting knowledge diffusion that propels both economic vitality, ecological sustainability, and societal advancement. We need to prioritise the establishment of a research architecture that fosters knowledge and innovation across all EU member states — one that equips member states, businesses, and individuals, with the skills, infrastructures, and investments necessary for widespread prosperity and industrial leadership.
This new framework for the Single Market must firstly protect and strengthen the existing fundamental freedoms, based on a level playing field, while supporting the objective of establishing a more dynamic and effective European industrial policy. To achieve these ambitious objectives, we need speed, we need scale, and above all – we need sufficient financial resources. It is crucial that we fully tap the potential of our research and development strengths and maximise the opportunities offered by the Single Market, but it also means enabling research and innovation that solves today’s most thorny problems and ensures a bright future for Europe. It entails that research funding streams need to be better aligned and optimised. For this, outdated and discriminatory national rules and practices in the administration of science must be abolished, public-private partnerships boosted, data sharing must be made easier, and open science must be pursued while maintaining research security measures. Research and innovation laws must be harmonized across the EU, and the use of regulatory sandboxes, expanded.
In many ways, the Letta report reflects what the European Union’s research and development community has been saying for years. As stated by Kurt Deketelaere, Secretary General of the League of European Research Universities, in ScienceBusiness, “We need a legal underpinning of the fifth freedom, which must lead to an elimination of EU and member state legal obstacles to the free circulation of knowledge.”
Letta’s report is new, but it is indeed not novel. One of the authors of this opinion piece, during his term as former EU Commissioner for Science and Research, already argued back in 2007 in favour of making knowledge – in its production conditions (scientific research) as well in its outputs (scientific knowledge and expertise) – a Fifth Freedom. His vision was very much like Letta’s and generally called for similar reforms. At the publication of that paper, the idea of creating a European Research Area (ERA) that functioned as a single market for research and innovation had been already suggested in 2000 but struggled to get off the ground. The ERA is now explicitly an EU treaty objective and was revamped in 2018 with a first ERA policy agenda for 2022 to 2024. The EU has also created a European Higher Education Area (EHEA) which serves as the higher education equivalent to the ERA, the European Research Council (ERC), the highly successful Horizon programmes, and has passed several measures to better coordinate cross-border research, education, data sharing, and collaboration.
According to Article 179 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), the “Union shall have the objective of strengthening its scientific and technological bases by achieving a European research area in which researchers, scientific knowledge and technology circulate freely, and encouraging it to become more competitive, including in its industry, while promoting all the research activities deemed necessary by virtue of other Chapters of the Treaties.”
While Letta’s vision is not revolutionary, it is a highly welcomed continuation and deepening of the argument that the Fifth Freedom could give greater impetus for creating a fully functioning ERA. What is more, in the Letta report, a strengthened ERA is rightly considered to be a crucial lever for enhancing research, innovation, and education for the Single Market. The task is to now move pushing our Fifth Freedom at a time when the budgets of the EU and those of its individual member states are being increasingly dedicated to defence.
Overall, the Letta report envisions a more integrated and dynamic ERA that can drive innovations benefiting the entire continent. The Fifth Freedom goal highlights how the seamless mobility of researchers across Europe is vital for the vibrant exchange of expertise and for opening doors to unique research opportunities. It calls for dismantling the many administrative and legal barriers to enhance collaboration and integration within the ERA. It suggests that empowering research infrastructures and facilitating access to laboratories, digital platforms, and cutting-edge equipment are essential for the research community to address complex challenges. The establishment of a European Knowledge Commons is proposed as a centralized digital platform that provides access to publicly funded research, data sets, and educational resources, thereby fostering innovation and societal progress.
The authors of this opinion piece are convinced that we need a big framework programme, with an even bigger focus on ERA delivery. Pooling resources for “big science” and major scientific innovations is imperative. Examples from the past, like boosting the partnership in electronics and supercomputing, are showing that significant investment from the EU towards a joint priority also attracts national investments. This could also convince member countries that bigger budgets for research, development and innovation are rational and required. For this, we have clear arguments emerging from a competitiveness angle of the Draghi report. Draghi urges us to learn from research and technology hubs like California, recommending that the European Union should likewise focus on funding and developing a number of “world-class innovation hubs”.
We do believe that for boosting the three existing pillars of the EU’s Horizon Europe programme – covering Excellent Science, Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness, and Innovative Europe – the horizontal pillar of widening and deepening the ERA should become a powerful coordination driver of all EU framework programmes.
Finally, let us deepen our argument by pointing to the connection between the Fifth Freedom and the goals of sustainability and safeguarding the EU’s Green Transition project. Letta’s report argues that the Single Market, which is based on the free movement of goods, services, people, and capital, is “outdated” and not fit for the 21st century. The four classical freedoms “fall short in addressing the shift from an economy based on ownership to a new economy, based on access and sharing. The freedom of investigating, exploring and creating for the benefit of humankind without disciplinary or artificial borders and limitations.”
The introduction of the Fifth Freedom into the architecture of the Single market also specifically encompasses climate and environmental efforts. Letta explained at a press conference that “This is related to the freedom of contributing to address societal challenges, such as climate change and biodiversity losses and their impact on the planet, humans and cultural heritage,” and noted that the current emphasis on goods and services also “fails to capture” the opportunities and threats associated with a shift to a circular economy. A “circular economy is the only possibility of saving the planet and changing the paradigm of present manufacturing. … After all, we can only achieve greater independence and security… if we switch to a circular economy,” the Green MEP Anna Cavazzini rightly added in her comment. However, very clearly, developing the Green Transition requires better and more novel scientific knowledge and innovations from the environmental as well as the social sciences. The more we let scientists collaborate across borders within the EU, the better the EU will be positioned to achieve the necessary transition.
A circular economy is actually the oldest concept on planet Earth. All nature is based on the circular principles: Nothing is lost, everything is conserved, and every use of natural goods has consequences that we must learn to fully realize and understand, so that we learn how to reuse and to keep our waste and consumption at bay. We humans, as part of nature, should abide by these principles. Unfortunately, what is accepted in theory isn’t followed in practice. It is the basic foundation of shifting our economy from a linear extractive reality, but it must be broadened to include regenerative principles and economic indicators that foster broader values of well-being and a significantly reduced human footprint regarding natural resources.
The European Green Deal (EGD) kickstarted EU-wide efforts for a very much needed comprehensive transformation of our economy and society. The direction set by the EGD should continue to remain the North Star for the future. When it comes to sustainability, the world has not changed for the better in the few years since the release of EGD; quite the contrary. At the same time, we also cannot ignore recent developments, the new geo-strategical reality, nor the additional challenges related to them. The need for strengthening our competitiveness and fairness, on top of security needs, are all priorities identified in recently released new European Commission policy documents and are indeed important directions to take. Still, we must understand that integration of those priorities with the vision already set by the EGD is critical for a well-balanced systemic and strategic approach that ensures that we are not only competitive, but we are building an economy of the future that is resilient to future impacts from climate change, conflict, and biodiversity loss.
The European Environmental Agency’s 2024 report “Sustainability and competitiveness: Europe's sustainability transitions outlook - short-term action, long-term thinking” is clear in its explanation of how the new system should and could work, and how the integration of all new priority areas should look like from a policy perspective:
It is essential to remember that sustainability is not in opposition to competitiveness, but a critical success factor for competitiveness, security, fairness, democracy, and the progress of the European project at large. It would be a new and exciting task and impetus for European science to study these major connections between the economy and the environment, between the safety and the progress of the European project, to test and check their viability, and to discuss their systematic and ethical coherence. Collaborative and intensified research on this, under the ERA framework and supported by an established Fifth Freedom programme, might even spur and strengthen the development of a deeper European identity.
At a personal level, we always care to provide our children with the best possible education as a foundation for their lives. We want them to enhance their capabilities, their critical and analytical thinking skills, and their expertise, through education, so that they become agents of their own lives and mature citizens or leaders within their communities. Likewise, the power of any nation starts and evolves with its relation to knowledge, education, research and innovation. That is why across Europe there has always been a deep understanding of the importance of educational and research excellence. We must now think in the same way about an enhanced joined up EU approach to education, research, and innovation.
The EU has great knowledge potential, and also some great existing programmes and initiatives. However, it is still lacking a powerful glue that would turn the existing potential into a leading global force for the “The Future We Want” (United Nation’s sustainable development conference, 2009). The freedom of movement of goods, services, capital, and persons in the EU’s Single Market should thus be complemented and empowered by a new freedom of mobility of scientists, their research and expertise, alongside their enhanced collaboration across borders. As well-put in the Letta report, “The freedom of investigating, exploring and creating for the benefit of humankind without disciplinary or artificial borders and limitation” is essential.
Ensuring that knowledge, its creators and holders can move freely across the Single Market, should thus be an essential motor of Europe’s innovation plan including the EGD, the Clean Industrial Deal with the implementation of industry 5.0 principles, and a more innovative and flexible capital market. Complementing the EGD and green industrial policies with smart labour policies is also a win-win for Europe.
To attract global talent and keep European talent, Europe already has many cards to play. Mercer, a global HR consulting firm and expert on cross-border talent management, states that the top 15 out of 20 cities to live in are in Europe. This is based on Europe’s relative outperformance of non-member countries in pollution reduction, people-centric city design, and public services.
While cutting regulatory burdens has been singled out by the Commission as a priority for boosting competitiveness, it would behove the EU to also focus on its labour shortages, which are only set to get worse as its population continues to age. According to the latest Eurobarometer survey, 66% of EU companies already see labour shortages as one of their main problems. This is compared to 33% who say the same thing about regulation. Recent modelling by Project SEER, a European research consortium, shows that over one-third of jobs created through green industrial policies such as the Net-Zero Industry Act will likely remain vacant due to labour mismatches. This will hamper regional prosperity, especially coupled with weak investment signals towards green entrepreneurial activities.
Therefore, instead of listening to and protecting incumbent industries, or weakening environmental and social protections, Europe should boost its competitiveness by playing to its strengths and ensuring it continues to foster science-based decision-making and job creation.
Diversity is the Union’s strength, but the real strength in diversity is only shown if we translate it and apply it, through unity. Europe should not only be the most attractive place to live, but also the most attractive place to work. The introduction of the Fifth Freedom related to knowledge, its production, and its uses for the EU Single Market could be an important – and even decisive – ingredient for translating our diversity into power and hence creating the strong, unified, and sovereign Single Market we all aspire to.