Implementation of the social goals of the Europe 2020 Strategy by EU member states

Purpose: The subject of interest in the work is social goals, the importance of which was increased in relation to the previously binding Lisbon Strategy when it turned out that they were too underdeveloped in it. The main aim of the paper is to assess the implementation of the social goals of the Europe 2020 strategy by the EU Member States in the period 2010-2019, i.e. a year before its expiry, as well as to compare the results achieved by them.

Design/Methodology/Approach: The article proposes an effective and easy-to-use measure of ranking and monitoring member states in terms of their results using a procedure based on the taxonomic research with application of zero-unitarization method (min-max normalization). This method allows the integration of 10 indicators - 7 main statistical indicators provided for this purpose and 3 additionally selected by the authors - which is an extension of the previously used set of variables serving this purpose.

Findings: The obtained results allow not only to assess the implementation of the social goals of Strategy 2020, but also to use the knowledge gained on this subject when planning future strategic goals and their indicators.
Practical Implications: The practical advantage of the analytical method used in the article is not only the possibility of using taxonomic research using the zero unitarization method to evaluate individual objects in terms of the implementation of multidimensional goals, but also obtaining additional information about the internal structure and characteristics of this implementation.

Originality/value: The added value of the applied research method, apart from the aforementioned extension of the set of variables, is the fact that the level of achieving the social goal of each object is assessed on the basis of the results obtained in each group of indicators taken into account for this purpose. It is also worth emphasizing that this work focuses solely on the implementation of social goals, while other researchers deal with the synthetic (general) evaluation of the Strategy.