Sustainable development in eu countries in the framework of the europe 2020 strategy

Abstract

The Europe 2020 Strategy was proposed with a long-term vision to ensure prosperity, development, and competitiveness for the member countries. This strategy is divided into three main areas named “growth.” One of these is sustainable growth. This is an area of sustainability, where the partial targets are referred to as the “20-20-20 approach,” and includes a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, an increase in energy efficiency, and the sharing of renewable energy sources. However, questions arise, including: How do member states meet these targets? Which countries are leaders in this area? According to these stated questions, the aim of this article is to assess how EU countries are meeting the set targets for sustainable growth resulting from the Europe 2020 strategy and to identify the countries with the best results in this area. We looked for answers to these questions in the analysis of sustainable indicators, which were transformed into a synthetic measure for comparability of the resulting values. Finally, we identified the Baltic states, Nordic countries (European Union members), Romania, and Croatia as the best countries in ful-filling the sustainable growth aims. As sustainable development and resource efficiency are crucial areas for the future, it is important to consider these issues.