Eurostat 2022 report on Sustainable Development Goals in the European Union

Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union, published in May the ‘Sustainable development in the European Union — 2022 monitoring report on progress towards the SDGs in an EU context', which provides a statistical overview of progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the EU. The monitoring report provides a statistical presentation of trends relating to the SDGs in the EU over the past five years (‘short-term’) and, when sufficient data are available, over the past 15 years (‘long-term’). The indicator trends are described on the basis of a set of specific quantitative rules. This 2022 edition also analyses the COVID-19 pandemic’s impacts during 2020, 2021 and the beginning of 2022 that are visible in Eurostat’s official statistics.

The report shows that, over the last five years, the EU has made significant progress towards five SDGs and moderate progress toward most others. In particular:

• Progress towards the goals in the areas of health and well-being (SDG 3), life below water (SDG 14), gender equality (SDG 5), sustainable cities and communities (SDG 11), reduced inequalities (SDG 10), responsible consumption and production (SDG 12), quality education (SDG 4), climate action (SDG 13) and zero hunger (SDG 2) was moderate.
• The overall assessment of EU progress for partnerships (SDG 17) and clean water and sanitation (SDG 6) was neutral, which means that they were characterised by an almost equal number of sustainable and unsustainable developments.
• Finally, a slight movement away from the respective Sustainable Development objectives over the past five years has been found for life on land (SDG 15), indicating that ecosystems and biodiversity remained under pressure from human activities. .