The EU heads of state or government came together for an informal meeting in Budapest last week to adopt the “Budapest Declaration on the New European Competitiveness Deal” with the goal to strengthen European competitiveness, develop common economic prosperity, and ensure the EU’s sovereignty and global influence.
In the declaration, the Council commends the recent reports “The future of European competitiveness”, by Mario Draghi, and “Much more than a market” by Enrico Letta, which identify important challenges that require innovative and effective political responses. Building on the Letta report, the Council declares its readiness to work on the introduction of a “fifth freedom” within the Single Market framework for research, innovation, knowledge, and education.
COMMUNIA and other civil society organisations have long called for the improvement of the EU legal framework for access to knowledge. European public interest institutions in the fields of education, research and cultural heritage form part of the critical infrastructure of the European society and economy. They play a crucial role in connecting European citizens to information resources and so contribute to an environment that is favourable to innovation and the creation of new knowledge.
Unfortunately, thus far, Europe has failed to appropriately support the digital transition of these institutions. They face countless hurdles when it comes to fulfilling their public missions in the digital ecosystem such as licensing practices that challenge their ability to build and maintain permanent digital collections. This increases their vulnerability to market influences, and laws that are not harmonised across the Union, creating a chilling effect on research and other public interest activities, due to legal uncertainty and fear of litigation.
Therefore, COMMUNIA welcomes the Council’s support of a fifth freedom focusing on research, innovation, knowledge and education. Codifying this new freedom would be an important first step towards a true European research area.
It is also commendable that the Council intends to increase its funding for research and development, eying a 3% GDP expenditure target by 2030. Yet if the EU wants to make the most of its investments, the legislators need to take bolder steps. For this reason, we encourage the Member States to consider a more comprehensive intervention, a Digital Knowledge Act, with the aim of creating a digital information ecosystem and fully unlocking the potential of European knowledge institutions.
