OREANDA-NEWS. The Europe 2020 strategy, adopted by the European Council in June 2010, aims at establishing a smart, sustainable and inclusive economy with high levels of employment, productivity and social cohesion. The key objectives of the strategy are expressed in the form of targets in five areas: employment, research & development (R&D), climate change & energy, education and poverty reduction, to be reached by 2020. These have been translated into national targets in order to reflect the situation and possibilities of each Member State to contribute to the common goal. A set of nine headline indicators and additional sub-indicators, compiled by Eurostat, give an overview of how close the European Union (EU) is to its overall targets.

Today Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union, issues the 2016 edition of the publication “Smarter, greener, more inclusive?”, which provides information on past trends and latest statistics useful to support the Europe 2020 strategy and to back up the monitoring towards its Europe 2020 targets.

A complete picture of how the EU is progressing towards its Europe 2020 targets

The analysis in the Eurostat publication is based on the Europe 2020 headline indicators used to monitor the strategy's targets. Other indicators focusing on specific subgroups of society or on related issues that show underlying trends are used to deepen the analysis and present a broader picture. The purpose of the publication is not to predict whether Europe 2020 targets will be reached, but to help to understand the factors behind the changes observed so far. Each chapter also links to various European Commission initiatives and reports that support the different areas.

The radar chart below presents the current situation of the EU by showing the progress made since 2008 and the distance still to cover towards the Europe 2020 key targets