Archive:Europe 2020 indicators - introduction

This article is part of a set of statistical articles based on the Eurostat publication Smarter, greener, more inclusive - Indicators to support the Europe 2020 strategy, providing recent statistics on the EU's Europe 2020 strategy.

About this publication

Smarter, greener, more inclusive? — Indicators to support the Europe 2020 strategy is a new publication of Eurostat. The purpose of this publication is to provide statistical support for the Europe 2020 strategy and to back-up the monitoring of its headline targets. The publication presents official statistics produced by the European Statistical System (ESS) and disseminated by Eurostat. Impartial and objective statistical information is essential for evidence-based political decision-making and defines Eurostat’s role in the context of the Europe 2020 strategy. This role is to provide statistical and methodological support in the process of developing and choosing the relevant indicators to support the strategy, to produce and supply statistical data, and ensure its high quality standards.

The analysis in the publication is based on the Europe 2020 headline indicators chosen to monitor the strategy’s targets. Other indicators focusing on specific subgroups of society or on related issues that show underlying trends are also used to deepen the analysis and present a broader picture. The data used stem mainly from official ESS sources such as the EU Labour Force Survey (EU LFS) or the EU statistics on income and living conditions (EU-SILC) as well as from administrative sources.

More detailed information on many of the indicators analysed in this publication can be found in Eurostat’s Monitoring Report of the EU Sustainable Development Strategy (the 2013 edition will be published in December 2013). The monitoring report, based on the EU set of sustainable development indicators (about 100 indicators), provides an objective, statistical picture of progress towards the goals and objectives of the EU Sustainable Development Strategy. It is published every two years.

The analysis in Smarter, greener, more inclusive? — Indicators to support the Europe 2020 strategy looks into past trends, generally since 2000 or 2005, up to the most recent year for which data are available (2011 or 2012). Its purpose is not to predict whether the Europe 2020 targets will be reached, but to investigate the reasons behind the changes observed in the headline indicators. The publication includes references to analyses published by the European Commission on the future efforts required to meet the targets.

Data on EU-27 aggregates, individual Member States and where available on the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) and candidate countries, Croatia, the United States and Japan are presented. Taking into account that Croatia joined the EU on 1 July 2013, it is included in the country-level data used to complement the analysis whenever the differences in performance between Member States are of interest. This is particularly the case for the headline indicators. The EU-28 aggregates are not analysed, as at the time of writing data were not available for the majority of the indicators.

As described in the next section, the EU-wide targets have been translated into national targets by most Member States. In a few cases, maps presenting the different performances of Europe’s regions and their progress towards the national Europe 2020 targets are included, even though the targets only apply on a national level.

The publication is structured around the five Europe 2020 targets. Each is analysed in a dedicated thematic chapter. Data on the headline indicators and information on the Europe 2020 strategy are available on a dedicated section of Eurostat’s website: Europe 2020 indicators.

This introductory section presents the Europe 2020 strategy and the economic context in which it is embedded. An executive summary outlines the main statistical trends observed in the indicators. The five thematic chapters are followed by a ‘country profiles’ section. This describes how each Member State is progressing in relation to its national Europe 2020 targets. It also summarises existing and planned actions and measures for reaching the national Europe 2020 targets.

The Europe 2020 strategy

The Europe 2020 strategy, adopted by the European Council on 17 June 2010 , is the EU’s agenda for growth and jobs for the current decade. It emphasises smart, sustainable and inclusive growth as a way to overcome the structural weaknesses in Europe’s economy, improve its competitiveness and productivity and underpin a sustainable social market economy.

The Europe 2020 strategy is the successor to the Lisbon strategy. The latter was launched in March 2000 in response to the mounting economic and demographic challenges for Europe at the dawn of the twenty-first century. The Lisbon strategy emerged as a commitment to increasing European competitiveness through a knowledge-based society, technological capacity and innovation.

Three key priorities

The Europe 2020 strategy puts forward three mutually reinforcing priorities to make Europe a smarter, more sustainable and more inclusive place to live:

• it envisions the transition to smart growth through the development of an economy based on knowledge, research and innovation;
• the sustainable growth objective relates to the promotion of more resource efficient, greener and competitive markets;
• the inclusive growth priority encompasses policies aimed at fostering job creation and poverty reduction.

In a rapidly changing world, these priorities are deemed essential for making the European economy fit for the future and for delivering higher employment, productivity and social cohesion . Under the three priority areas the EU adopted five ambitious headline targets on employment, research and development (R&D) and innovation, climate change and energy, education, and poverty and social exclusion. The targets are monitored using a set of eight headline indicators (including three sub-indicators relating to the multidimensional concept of poverty and social exclusion).

Each indicator falls within one of the three thematic priorities, as shown in Figure 1:

• The smart growth objective is covered by the indicators on innovation (gross domestic expenditure on R&D) and education (early leavers from education and training and tertiary educational attainment).
• The sustainable growth pillar is monitored by three indicators on climate change and energy (greenhouse gas emissions, share of renewable energy in gross final energy consumption and primary energy consumption).
• Inclusive growth is measured against the poverty or social exclusion headline indicator (combining three sub-indicators on monetary poverty, material deprivation and living in a household with very low work intensity) and employment rate.

For a detailed overview of the indicators see Table 0.1 in the executive summary. The strategy objectives and targets are further supported by thematic flagship initiatives, as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: The Europe 2020 strategy's key priorities, EU overall headline targets and flagship initiatives

Five headline targets

The headline targets related to the strategy’s key objectives at the EU level, as defined in the Council Conclusions, are:

• 75 % of men and women aged 20 to 64 years to be employed.
• 3 % of GDP to be invested in the research and development (R&D) sector.
• Climate change and energy targets:

1. Reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20 % compared to 1990 levels.
2. Increase the share of renewables in final energy consumption to 20 %.
3. 20 % increase in energy efficiency.

• Reduce the rates of early school leaving to below 10 %, and at least 40 % of 30 to 34 year olds to have completed tertiary or equivalent education.
• Reduce poverty by lifting at least 20 million people out of the risk of poverty or social exclusion.

These targets were initially defined in the Commission communication ‘Europe 2020 — A strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth’ published on 3 March 2010. On 17 June 2010 they were adopted by a European Council decision , although with certain amendments. Therefore, the exact formulation of the targets differs slightly in these two documents. For example, while in the Commission’s document the definition of the poverty target encompasses only people at risk of monetary poverty, in the Council Conclusions the target is defined in reference to people who are at risk of poverty or social exclusion according to three indicators: at risk of monetary poverty, material deprivation and/or living in households with very low work intensity.

The five headline targets are strongly interlinked, as shown in Figure 2. Higher educational levels help employability and progress in increasing the employment rate helps to reduce poverty. A greater capacity for research and development as well as innovation across all sectors of the economy, combined with increased resource efficiency, will improve competitiveness and foster job creation. Investing in cleaner, low-carbon technologies will help the environment, contribute to the fight against climate change and create new business and employment opportunities.

File:Fig0 2-KEV.png

Figure 2: Europe 2020 strategy headline targets and their interlinkages

The EU headline targets have been translated into national targets. These reflect each Member State’s situation and the level of ambition they are able to reach as part of the EU-wide effort for implementing the Europe 2020 strategy. For example, while the EU is committed to increasing employment to 75 %, the national employment targets adopted by Member States vary from 62.9  % in Malta to 80 % in Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden. According to a European Commission analysis, if all Member States were to exactly achieve their national targets ‘the EU as a whole would fall short of the 75 % target by 1.0–1.3 percentage points’. An aggregation of the national poverty and social exclusion targets is not possible because Member States have the freedom to set their national targets on the basis of the most appropriate indicators, taking into account their circumstances and priorities.

The level of ambition embodied in the national Europe 2020 commitments varies substantially among Member States. Whereas some face considerable challenges in reaching their 2020 objectives, others are set to achieve their national targets even without policy changes. Given their national objectives and forthcoming demographic changes, Malta and Germany, for instance, will reach their employment targets even against a negative employment growth rate. On the other hand, countries such as Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy and Portugal, are at such a large distance from their national targets that achieving their 2020 commitments under current circumstances does not seem plausible.

Seven flagship initiatives

In addition to the five headline targets, the strategy identifies seven policy areas that will serve as engines for growth and jobs and hence catalyse the procedure under each priority theme. These are put forward through the following seven flagship initiatives:

• ‘Innovation Union’ aims to create a more conducive environment for innovation by improving conditions and access to finance for research and development. Facilitating the transformation of innovative ideas into products and services is seen as the key to creating more jobs, building a greener economy, improving quality of life and maintaining the EU’s competitiveness on the global market.
• ‘Youth on the move’ is concerned with improving the performance and international attractiveness of Europe’s higher education institutions; to raise the overall quality of the education and training in the EU and assisting the integration of young people into the labour market. This aim is to be achieved through EU-funded study, learning and training programmes as well as through the development of platforms to assist young people in their search for employment across the EU.
• ‘A digital agenda for Europe’ aims to advance high-speed broadband coverage and internet structure, as well as the uptake of information and communication technologies across the EU.
• ‘A resource efficient Europe’ aims to facilitate the transition to a resource-efficient and low-carbon economy. This is to be achieved through support for increased use of renewable energy, development of green technologies, promotion of energy efficiency, modernisation of the transport, industrial and agricultural systems, preservation of biodiversity and regional development. The Resource Efficiency Scoreboard, comprising about 30 indicators, is disseminated via a dedicated section on Eurostat’s website.

Figure 3: The European Semester

• ‘An industrial policy for the globalisation era’ supports the development of a strong, diversified and resource-efficient industrial base, which is able to boost growth and jobs in Europe and successfully compete on the global market. It also sets out a strategy for promoting a favourable business environment by facilitating access to credit and internationalisation of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

• ‘An agenda for new skills and jobs’ aims to advance reforms, which would improve flexibility and security in the labour market (‘flexicurity’); create conditions for mod-ernising labour markets and enhance job quality and working conditions. Further-more, it endorses policies aimed at empowering people, through the acquisition of new skills, through the promotion of better labour supply and demand matching and raise labour productivity.

• ‘European platform against poverty and social exclusion’ sets out actions for combating poverty and social exclusion by improving access to work, basic services, education and social support for the marginalised part of the population.

The headline targets and the flagship initiatives briefly defined above are described in more detail in the thematic chapters of this publication.

The European Semester: annual cycle of policy coordination

The success of the Europe 2020 strategy cruicially depends on Member States coordinating their efforts. To ensure this, the European Commission has set up an annual cycle of EU-level policy coordination known as the European Semester. Its main purpose is to strengthen economic policy coordination and ensure the coherence of the budgetary and economic policies of Member States with the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) and the Europe 2020 strategy.

Figure 4: Integrated country surveillance

The Annual Growth Survey (AGS), normally adopted by the Commission towards the end of the year, marks the start of the European Semester. It sets out overall economic, budgetary and social priorities at EU and national level, which are to guide Member States. Based on the AGS, each Member State has to develop plans for National Reform Programmes (NRPs) and Stability Convergence Programmes (SCPs). This period of integrated country surveillance starts before the first half of each year, when national economic and budgetary policies have still not been finalised. The aim is to detect inconsistencies and emerging imbalances and issue early warnings and recommendations in due course. The NRPs and SCPs are submitted to the European Commission for assessment in April. At the end of June/July, country-specific recommendations are formally endorsed by the Council. These recommendations provide a timeframe for Member States to respond accordingly and implement the policy advice.

Other policy tools for growth and jobs

To ensure progress towards the Europe 2020 goals a broad range of existing EU policies and instruments are being harnessed, including the single market, the EU budget and external policy tools. Central to tackling the weaknesses revealed by the crisis and to achieving the Europe 2020 objectives of growth and competitiveness is the promotion of enhanced economic governance. The two important elements in this respect are the Macroeconomic Imbalance Procedure (MIP) and the Excessive Deficit Procedure (EDP) based on the Stability and Growth Pact.

The MIP is intended to monitor the build-up of persistent macroeconomic imbalances and serve as an early warning system. A MIP scoreboard of 11 indicators provides information for the identification of external and internal macroeconomic imbalances. Internal imbalances refer to public sector indebtedness, financial and asset market developments and other general trends such as private sector credit flows and unemployment. External imbalances are related to current account developments and trends in real effective exchange rates, share of world exports and nominal unit labour costs .

The EDP is a part of the corrective arm of the SGP. Its main purpose is to enforce compliance with budgetary discipline and ensure Member States take corrective actions in a timely and durable manner. The EDP operationalises limits on the budget deficit and public debt on the basis of the following thresholds enshrined in the Treaty: government deficit within 3 % of GDP and gross debt not exceeding 60 % of GDP without diminishing at a satisfactory pace. The procedure under the EDP starts when a Member State has either breached or is at risk of breaching one of the two thresholds, with special consideration sometimes also given to other factors. Within a period of six months (or three for serious breaches) countries placed in EDP need to take actions and implement recommendations to correct their excessive deficit levels. Member States that fail to do so within the predefined timeframe or deliver insufficient progress, become subject to certain sanctions and receive revised recommendations with an extended timeline.

See also

• Europe 2020 headline indicators

Further Eurostat information

Publications

• Smarter, greener, more inclusive? - Indicators to support the Europe 2020 strategy

Main tables

• Europe 2020 headline indicators

Dedicated section

• Europe 2020 indicators

Methodology / Metadata

• Towards robust quality management for European Statistics - Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council COM(2011) 211 final

Other information

• Regulation 223/2009 of 11 March 2009 on European statistics

External links

• European Commission website Europe 2020