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hindered progress in another, coordination between different sectoral policies
must be improved. It noted that the Union must engage more actively with
the global community because in order to adeguately tackle the challenges
ahead, global measures will be necessary (European Commission 2001a,
4-15). A few years later, in 2007, the European Commission asserted that
while the Union should continue to focus on the challenges identified before,
it must give particular attention to climate change-related problems (European
Commission 2007, 14).
In 2010, just two years after the emergence of the 2008 financial-economic
crisis, the Europe 2020 Strategy was adopted. Its objective was to move the
continent’s economy out of the crisis and lay the foundations for a more
sustainable future built on smart, sustainable, and inclusive growth. By smart,
the Strategy referred to an economy based on knowledge and innovation.
Sustainable meant the active promotion of a more resource-efficient, greener,
and more competitive economy; and inclusive growth meant fostering a high¬
employment economy that delivers social and territorial cohesion (European
Commission 2010).
The Union has mixed experiences with the implementation of this Strategy,
which ended up being a ‘revised Lisbon Strategy’ rather than a new, innovative
long-term vision. It mainly focused on EU domestic policies, and both its
general scope and efficiency remained limited. Since the Member States took
little ownership of the reforms and did not prioritise relevant actions, the
Strategy ended up lacking actual governance and engagement, and thus had
little effect on actual EU policymaking.
As mentioned before, the adoption of the 2030 Agenda, in 2015 has
generated a new wave of globally shared efforts for achieving sustainability. The
EU played a leading role in creating the plan, and since its adoption it has made
substantial steps towards its implementation. The European Commission's
comprehensive “whole of government” approach on implementing the
SDGs comprises several key elements aiming to effectively design and apply
sustainable development policies (e.g. further coordination of economic
policies, promoting the engagement of both civil society and the private
sector, continuous monitoring and reporting on results, strengthening the
EU’s engagement in international relations; see European Commission
2020c, 2-15).
As of today, the Union stands out in the global community with its
impressive SDGs record. All the ten countries that are the closest to attaining
the 17 Goals of the 2030 Agenda are Member States of the EU (and from the
top 20 best-performing countries, 17 are EU Member States).* EU countries
usually obtain the best results on socio-economic development Goals - e.g.
SDG 1 (No Poverty) or SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-Being) - which comes
8 The order being: 1. Denmark, 2. Sweden, 3. Finland, 4. Austria, 5. Germany, 6. France, 7.
Netherlands, 8. Czech Republic 9. Slovenia, 10. Estonia. See Sachs et al. 2020, 25-33.