Single market strategy: "The fifth freedom will be addressed in the ERA Act" (Signe Ratso)

"The fifth freedom will be addressed in the ERA Act", says Signe Ratso, Commission's Deputy DGRI, on 23/05/2025, at the conference "Unlocking Innovation: Research-Intensive Universities as Drivers of Competitiveness and Societal Impact" organised by Leru, The Guild, KU Leuven and Université Catholique de Louvain (Belgium).

She replies to a question about the absence of the fifth freedom concept in the Single Market Strategy presented by the Commission's Executive Vice-President for Prosperity and Industrial Strategy, Stéphane Séjourné, on 21/05/25.

Enrico Letta, former Italian Prime Minister and Dean of the IE University's School of Political Science, Economics and Global Affairs (Spain), published his report on the Single Market on 17/04/2024. He proposed the addition of a fifth freedom to the existing four, encompassing research, innovation, skills, knowledge, and education, which is "essential to transform existing dispersed knowledge into unified opportunities". Since then, he has actively promoted the concept, which is becoming a central part of policy discussions.

"Currently…