JRC - Joint Research Centre

11/29/2021 | News release | Distributed by Public on 11/29/2021 05:10

New digital tool helps EU countries monitor their resilience

Today, the Commission is launching an interactive website to navigate the resilience dashboards, a set of indicators and information on resilience in Member States and non-EU countries.

This will further help EU countries identify their strengths and vulnerabilities when it comes to navigating the green and digital transitions, facing challenges and coping with potential shocks.

Vice-President Maroš Šefčovič, responsible for Interinstitutional Relations and Foresight, said: "The resilience dashboards are where strategic foresight and policy meet - and I invite policymakers to make the most of them. They provide valuable forward-looking and holistic insights into capacities and vulnerabilities, helping us shape our decisions in a way that will strengthen resilience in the EU and in our Member States. Importantly, the dashboards will also contribute to measuring our economic and social wellbeing, by going beyond a conventional GDP approach".

With a wide-ranging set of indicators, the dashboards give policymakers the information they need to help build stronger and more resilient economies and societies.

The dashboards provide a holistic picture that spans four dimensions: social and economic, green, digital, and geopolitical.

By focusing on multiple dimensions and their interlinkages, the dashboards expand on existing tools that tend to be sectoral or focus on single policy fields.

From employment rate to broadband access; from trade in raw materials to greenhouse gas emissions: the indicators on the resilience dashboards help countries grasp their level of vulnerability and resilience capacities across a wide range of areas, and monitor how they develop over time.

They also contribute to an integrated approach for measuring people's well-being beyond GDP.

By identifying strengths and vulnerabilities, the resilience dashboards can help countries, and the EU as a whole, understand where to focus efforts to make progress towards policy objectives amidst potential challenges like supply disruptions, climate change, health crises or cyber threats.

The dashboards also cover several non-EU countries, so the resilience of the EU can be assessed in an international context.

Right now, the dashboards show that the EU has medium to high capacities in many areas, while the situation with vulnerabilities can be improved. In the future, the dashboards will also help to assess whether EU and national policies are making societies more resilient.

The website is open to anyone to access data on resilience vulnerabilities and capacities, zoom in on indicators and countries and get an overview of the different dimensions and areas of resilience.

In 2020, the Commission's first Strategic Foresight Report introduced resilience as a new compass for EU policy-making, and resilience dashboards as the tool to monitor that resilience.

Resilience is defined as the ability not only to withstand and cope with challenges but also to undergo transitions, in a sustainable, fair, and democratic manner.

The 2021 Strategic Foresight Report foresees that the resilience dashboards will contribute to the ex-post assessment of Europe's recovery and resilience strategy, including vis-à-vis other key global players.

The 2022 Annual Sustainable Growth Survey, published last week as part of the Autumn package, mentions the potential use of the resilience dashboards in the upcoming country reports in the European Semester.

The resilience dashboards are the outcome of collaboration between European Commission services, Member States and experts from other institutions and academia. They have been constructed through a collective intelligence process that takes account of relevant 'megatrends ': long-term driving forces that will most likely have a significant impact on the EU's future.