Popović, Gabrijela and Fedajev, Aleksandra and Mitić, Petar and Stanujkić, Dragiša and Karabašević, Darjan (2026) Discovering the sustainable development goals achievement by European Union members using the wero method. International Journal of Environmental Science and Technology, 23. ISSN 1735-2630
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Traditional SDG progress comparisons mainly favour countries that are economically wealthier rather than those that truly implement effective and balanced policies. As a result, EU sustainability strategies can be misleading and fail to address deep regional inequalities. This study proposes a novel, target-oriented evaluation framework that couples the CRITIC weighting method with the WERO methodology to assess the sustainability performance of the EU-27. The analysis is mainly based on Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) indicators data reported in the Sustainable Development Report 2023, complemented by data from additional sources where necessary. The methodological contribution lies in combining objective criterion weights, determined using the CRITIC method, with WERO's target-based evaluation mechanism, which measures countries according to their distance from predefined SDG thresholds rather than solely their relative performance. Unlike conventional multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) models that merely track absolute performance, this approach shifts the paradigm toward strategic target proximity, evaluating countries based on their efficiency in meeting predefined sustainability thresholds. The empirical results expose a deeply entrenched regional divide, stratifying the EU into distinct frontier, convergence, and structural laggard clusters. By utilizing target-driven weights, the model successfully pinpoints precise systemic bottlenecks within structural laggards, such as acute poverty risks, lagging renewable energy integration, and electronic waste mismanagement. Consequently, the application of this methodological framework advocates the permanent abandonment of one-size-fits-all strategies in favour of a highly differentiated EU policy design. It outlines how primary financial instruments, including the Cohesion Fund and the Recovery and Resilience Facility, should be dynamically linked to specific institutional reforms and localized milestones. Ultimately, this framework transforms arbitrary country rankings into a precise, result-oriented roadmap for European integration.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Additional Information: | COBISS.RS. = 202582793 |
| Research Department: | Sustainable Development |
| Depositing User: | Jelena Banovic |
| Date Deposited: | 05 Oct 2026 11:13 |
| Last Modified: | 05 Oct 2026 11:13 |
| URI: | http://ebooks.ien.bg.ac.rs/id/eprint/2373 |
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