Brussels, 01/09/2015 (Agence Europe) - The EU's progress on the road to sustainable development varies from country to country, according to the sixth monitoring report of the EU's strategy in this field (SDS), which was published on Tuesday 1 September by Eurostat, the statistical office of the EU.
This progress, in terms of sustainable consumption and production, employment rates for older people, climate change and energy, measured on the basis of specific criteria, is absent in other areas, such as social inclusion, natural resources and public development aid. The stakes are high, as sustainable development aims constantly to improve the welfare and living standards of the citizens.
This monitoring report, the sixth of its kind, examines the three pillars of sustainable development - environmental, economic and social - but also the institutional aspect and the international plank of the SDS, which was adopted in 2001 and revised in 2006. The latter two aspects concern best governance practices in the EU and the global partnership supporting sustainable development at global level respectively.
For each of these five dimensions, progress has been measured using short-term (i.e. over the last five years) and long-term key indicators (since 2000), with the rating based on the progress seen - very favourable, somewhat favourable, somewhat unfavourable or very unfavourable.
Using this system, developments can be seen to be highly favourable for sustainable consumption and production (resource productivity criterion), demographic change (criterion: employment rate for older people), climate change and energy (greenhouse gas emissions and consumption of primary energy).
The productivity of resources has seen a substantial improvement since 2002, thanks to a general reduction of internal consumption of materials and an increase in GDP. The employment rate of older persons has risen steadily since 2002, with the EU taking until 2013 to meet the target it had initially laid down for 2010: a 50% employment rate for this category of the population.
Seen in the longer term, greenhouse gas emissions have been falling steadily, and if this trend continues, the EU will probably exceed the target it has set itself of 2020, which is to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 20% compared to 1990 figures, according to Eurostat.
Looking at the economic dimension of sustainable development, the key indicator of real GDP per head of population reflects a somewhat favourable trend in the short and long term alike, rising by more than 13% between 2000 and 2014.
The trend has been somewhat unfavourable for five of the 10 key indicators. The results are mixed for sustainable transport (criterion: energy consumption of transport in relation to GDP). The trend has been highly favourable in the short term, but just somewhat unfavourable in the long term.
The key indicator of social inclusion (persons at risk of poverty or social exclusion) has developed somewhat unfavourably in the long term, as in 2013, nearly one in every four people in the EU remained under the threat of poverty or social exclusion. However, its short-term progress has been very unfavourable.
The short-term development has also been strongly unfavourable for natural resources (common wild bird indicator), driven by the effect of a substantial drop in the numbers of species on agricultural land. The same is true of the global partnership (public development aid): the increase in the share of GNI collectively earmarked for public development aid (PDA) was insufficient to allow the EU, the world's largest donor, to reach its target of allocating 0.7% of its GNI to PDA in 2015.
As for good governance, there are still no criteria to measure progress, Eurostat explains. (Aminata Niang)