Advanced European Countries

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The country classification in the World Economic Outlook dividesthe world into two major groups: advanced economies and emerging anddeveloping economies. Please refer to the introduction to the WEO'sStatistical Appendix for details. This classification is not based onstrict criteria, economic or otherwise, and it has evolved over time. Theobjective is to facilitate analysis by providing a reasonably meaningfulmethod of organizing data.

Composites for other data relating to the domestic economy, whether growthrates or ratios, are weighted by GDP valued at purchasing power parity as ashare of total world or group GDP. Annual inflation rates are simplepercentage changes from the previous years, except in the case of emergingmarket and developing economies, for which the rates are based onlogarithmic differences.

Unless noted otherwise, composites for all sectors for the euro area arecorrected for reporting discrepancies in intra-area transactions.Unadjusted annual GDP data are used for the euro area and for the majorityof individual countries, except for Cyprus, Ireland, Portugal, and Spain,which report calendar-adjusted data. For data prior to 1999, dataaggregations apply 1995 European currency unit exchange rates.

Composites relating to external sector statistics are sums of individualcountry data after conversion to US dollars at the average market exchangerates in the years indicated for balance of payments data and atend-of-year market exchange rates for debt denominated in currencies otherthan US dollars.

Composites of changes in foreign trade volumes and prices, however, arearithmetic averages of percent changes for individual countries weighted bythe US dollar value of exports or imports as a share of total world orgroup exports or imports (in the preceding year).

Advanced technologies present enormous growth potential for Europe. Technologies such as the Internet of Things, industrial data, advanced manufacturing, robotics, 3D printing, blockchain technologies and artificial intelligence offer a range of opportunities that will enable European industry to expand its leadership in the emerging markets for the products and services of the future.

EU businesses are not taking full advantage of these advanced technologies or the innovative business models offered by the collaborative economy. The state of the uptake of advanced technologies by industry varies across sectors and between EU countries and regions. There are also large disparities between large companies and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). To improve this situation the European Commission is working in the following areas.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the most strategically important technologies of the 21st century and is expected to bring higher productivity, improved corporate performance and economic growth. More importantly, these technologies have the potential to create solutions for pressing societal challenges that we wish to address. To keep up with the evolution of AI and capture the competitive advantages it can yield, companies, in particular SMEs, need further support. Therefore, we are exploring the most critical AI applications to accelerate its deployment and adoption by SMEs within strategic value chains.

Big data and digital platforms have grown dramatically over the past decade and are radically transforming every industry. In spite of huge economic potential, data sharing between companies has not taken off at sufficient scale. So the Commission seeks to identify and address any undue hurdles hindering data sharing and the use of privately-held data by other companies. On business-to-business data sharing, we are deploying two big data pilot projects to explore the innovation potential and innovative business models created by sharing data between data-producing/controlling entities and third-party businesses.

The Strategic Policy Forum on Digital Entrepreneurship was a policy think tank that brought together thought leaders from business, academia and politics in the area of digital transformation and entrepreneurship. It advised the European Commission on policy issues and actions to foster digital transformation, and promoted the development of policy by EU countries at national and regional level. The Strategic Policy Forum drew up several reports on how to accelerate the digital transformation of European industry and enterprises.

Chemicals and advanced materials, including nanomaterials, are essential for our well-being and the high living standards of our societies. They are used in all sectors (e.g. health, electronics, energy, mobility and housing), in industrial products and consumer goods such as construction materials, lightweight materials, batteries, packaging, smart phones, cleaning products, cosmetics and many more.

Advanced materials and chemicals have novel or enhanced properties and improved performance, but they have to be safe, sustainable and circular too. Research and innovation is key in achieving all this.

The SRIP identifies research and innovation areas crucial for boosting the transition to chemicals and materials that are safe and sustainable in their entire lifecycle. It reflects the priorities of authorities, scientists and companies alike. The SRIP provides a comprehensive outlook of research and innovation needs from production to (re)use, disposal, and the decontamination of our environment. The aim of the SRIP is to encourage and guide funders in the EU to support its implementation through national and private financial programmes.

In September 2023 the Commission published a report on the funding landscape of European projects, offering a useful baseline for an indicator for the Chemical Strategy for Sustainability to assess funding gaps and future needs. The report establishes a methodology based on text-mining, to monitor the R&I European funding landscape towards the successful implementation of the SRIP for safe and sustainable Chemicals and Materials. It can serve as a blueprint for national and regional funding bodies, to carry out studies on their funding programmes related to the SRIP.

The safe and sustainable by design (SSbD) framework provides companies, authorities and scientists practical guidance on the design and assessment of safe and sustainable chemicals and materials. The Commission invites EU countries, industry, academia and research and technology organisations to make use of the framework in their research and innovation activities to speed up the development of such chemicals and materials. The framework can be applied to develop new chemicals and materials or to redesign existing ones improving hotspots in their lifecycle.

The aim is to establish an EU-wide research and innovation programme to support EU and national chemical risk assessment and risk management bodies with new data, methods, tools, networks and skills to address current, emerging and new chemical safety challenges.

IRISS is a 3-year project that aims to support safe and sustainable by design communities in Europe and globally to embrace an entire lifecycle approach, integrating safety, climate neutrality, circularity and functionality at the early stage of designing and manufacturing materials, products and processes. The IRISS project started in June 2022 and is co-funded under Horizon Europe.

Open Innovation Test Beds (OITBs) address the challenges of the industrial transformation in view of the European Green Deal and the Twin Transition of Europe's industry, by providing support to the scale-up and diffusion of technologies. The core services provided by OITBs are to develop, test and upscale technology to advance from validation in a laboratory to higher Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs) prior to competitive market entry.

OITBs potential users are mainly industrial players, especially SMEs, which seek support to develop and integrate innovative technologies towards commercialisation of new products, processes and services, whilst ensuring feasibility and regulatory compliance. More information can be found in the Explanatory Note on OITBS.

In July 2023, the European Commission published a policy report with recommendations that aim to improve their visibility, functionality, efficiency, and sustainability, and to help establish an interconnected innovation ecosystem that will make this instrument crucial in the support of the European Green Deal and the Twin Transition.

M-ERA-NET 3 represents an important ecosystem of 49 public funding organisations from 35 countries, issuing joint calls on materials research and innovation. This network is covering various research and innovation thematic priorities, for instance, sustainable advanced materials for energy, health applications, or advanced electronics, among others.

The European Commission has also been supporting the safety evaluation of nanomaterials by different actions: the EU NanoSafety Cluster and the Malta Initiative support the work of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development on nanomaterials standardization and risk assessment.

The advanced search allows you to search across all content available on all the public websites provided by EEA and its network. It provides several filters to help you narrow the scope of your search by topics, countries, type of content, language and more.

To contribute to the stability and effectiveness of the European financial system, the EBA develops harmonised rules for financial institutions, promotes convergence of supervisory practices, monitors, and advises on the impact of financial innovation and the transition to sustainable finance.

To ensure the orderly functioning and stability of the financial system in the European Union, we monitor and analyse risks and vulnerabilities relevant for the regulation of banks and investment firms. We also facilitate information sharing among authorities and institutions through supervisory reporting and data disclosure.

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