L’Anno europeo della creatività e dell’innovazione (2009). Verso la quinta libertà

The European Year of Creativity and Innovation (2009). Towards the Fifth Freedom

The European Union declared the year 2009 «European Year of Creativity and Innovation», and also put forward the so-called fifth freedom that the European political process should build (free circulation of researchers and knowledge) as a new goal for European democracy. The author enquiries into this perspective that is expected to foster the European construction progress towards the cognitive democracy of the knowledge society introduced in Lisbon, not with - standing the political crisis entered by the European after-Lisbon phase. By analysing the knowledge triangle (education-researchinnovation) policies which are required to realise the Europe of knowledge, the author suggests taking advantage of the two proposals submitted by the European Union through initiatives and debates aimed at stimulating the creativity potential of the European people and understanding that the current great crisis, mainly produced in the Anglo-Saxon countries, could reveal that the European culture of development may play a new unexpected international role.