Ranking and classification of EU countries regarding their levels of implementation of the Europe 2020 strategy

Issues related to globalization, increasing demand for limited resources, and aging of societies are among the critical problems facing the economically developed European Union. To address these challenges, the European Council adopted the Europe 2020 Strategy in June 2010 which serves as the current development plan for EU-28 member countries. According to the Strategy, these countries will adopt the concept of smart, sustainable, and inclusive growth, and improve Europe's competitiveness to a level similar to other developed economies in the world. Some fundamental questions do, however, arise. Is it possible to achieve a common development goal for the entire EU in spite of the significant disparities in countries' socioeconomic status? What has been the pace of implementation of the Strategy over the past years? How do the countries differ in their adoption of this Strategy? To answer these questions, it is fundamental to monitor the entire adoption process, as well as assess countries' implementation achievements. The current study is to evaluate the implementation of the Europe 2020 strategic goals in the EU-28 countries at three-time intervals: 2004, 2010, and 2015. Using national data in three key areas of development, we created a synthetic indicator to measure the level of implementation of the Europe 2020 Strategy in the EU member states. Then, all the countries were ranked based on their level of implementation and further classified into 4 equally populated groups. Our multidimensional approach and longitudinal perspective enabled comparisons across nations and time. The results demonstrate significant disparities in the level of implementation of the Strategy across EU countries. The disparities are noticeable between the "old" and "new" member countries, as well as between the highly developed western countries and south European countries that were severely hit by the 2008-2009 economic crisis. This applied research procedure has profound implications for further successful implementation of the Europe 2020 Strategy, both by individual countries and the EU as a whole. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.