LERU's view on Letta's Future of the Single Market Report

Prof. Deketelaere said that he is glad that Enrico Letta joins LERU’s decade long plea for a legal underpinning of the EU’s fifth freedom, which should lead to an elimination of EU and member state legal obstacles to the free circulation of knowledge, as well as for research and innovation as for education. He agreed with Mr Letta that by dismantling administrative and legal barriers, a vibrant exchange of expertise will be fostered and the door to unique research opportunities will be opened. Furthermore, he shared the idea that laws across EU Member States need to be harmonised and uniformly implemented, bureaucracy should be simplified and the use of regulatory sandboxes
must expand.

Prof. Deketelaere also mentioned that it is nice to see increased support for the European Commissions' Higher Education Package, but that some questions remain unanswered. For example, Erasmus+ would manage two-thirds of the €600M supporting funds, but the document does not clearly state who or what will contribute the rest of the capital. There is also no mentioning of a treaty change to make education a shared competence, and it is a pity that there is no explicit budget figure mentioned for R&I, as is for the European University Alliances.

Lastly, Prof. Deketelaere was disappointed that there is no mention in the report of the European Research Council (ERC):

“Why does he write such a nice chapter on research, innovation and education but does not mention the biggest R&I realisation of the EU, the ERC?”