Former Italian prime minister calls for R&I to be at the core of the EU single market
In June 2023, the European Council commissioned Enrico Letta, former President of the Italian Council and President of the Jacques Delors Institute, to prepare a high-level report on the future of the EU’s internal market. The report was presented at the European Summit in Brussels on 17- 18 April 2024.
In his report, Letta addresses the European Education Area as a “crucial dimension of the fifth freedom,” including recommendations to boost education mobility and the recently debated European Degree announced by the Commission.
The role of the European Universities alliances supported by the Erasmus+ programme would be pivotal in introducing this new type of degree, the document says. Because of this, Letta recommends, “A leap to €10 million annually for each alliance, culminating in 600 million euros per year across the current spectrum of 60 alliances.”
Moreover, Letta calls on member states to enshrine the European degree into law to remove the administrative and legal barriers that hinder joint degree programmes. However, harmonisation in education is hard with member states holding sole legislative responsibility in the field
As the global scenario has profoundly changed since the concept of the Single Market was introduced, the report highlights the need to develop a new Single Market. Amongst other things, Enrico Letta proposes a fifth freedom to enhance research, innovation and education in the single market. This would include the freedom of investigating, exploring and creating for the benefit of humankind without disciplinary or artificial borders and limitations. The report also finds that the migration of European talent in search of opportunities outside the EU is severely undermining the Union’s capacity for innovation.
In its conclusions, the report recommends amongst others that the Council should delegate to the European Commission the task of drafting a comprehensive Single Market Strategy. It also states that it would be useful to establish a Permanent Citizens’ Conference to inform and support the follow-up to this Report. The Citizens’ Conference could liaise with the three main EU institutions and produce recommendations on how to implement the Report.
consilium.europa.eu/media/ny3j24sm/much-more-than-a-market-report-by-enrico-letta.pdf