After compiling a report on the Single Market for the Belgian Presidency of the EU, former Italian Prime Minister and President of the Jacques Delors Institute Enrico Letta proposed a "fifth freedom" focused on research, education, and innovation. 

As Euronews reports, Letta's 'More more than a market' report suggested that ground-breaking innovation to the Single Market. Since 1993, the Single Market has enabled the free movement of goods, services, people, and capital in the EU, is the key to securing European prosperity in the rapidly evolving geopolitical and geo-economic global environment. Creating a 'fifth freedom' for education and innovation as proposed could support crucial sectors such as research and development, data utilisation, competencies, AI, quantum computing, biotech, bio-robotics and space. 

With the report holding the potential to shape the future of the Single Market, Letta travelled across Europe seeking gathering input. One of the stops on this route was the 2023 SME Assembly in Bilbao, hosted by the Spanish Presidency of the EU, where he engaged with participants, including SMEs representatives, from all around Europe. European SMEs could massively benefit from greater freedoms to collaborate and partner with other enterprises across the Union, placing SMEs at the heart of Europe's digital and green transitions. 

Read Enrico Letta's report on the future of the Single Market.