The Green Economy in the Context of Sustainable Development. Study Case: European Union

Abstract The term „Green economy” in the context of sustainable development was used for the first time in 1989, there is no internationally agreed definition for it. In the last decades, in a relatively short period it has become an issue with major importance worldwide, the society realizing that its actions have direct effects on the environment, its live and where we carry out our work. In order to correctly understand the meaning of Green economy we need an insight on man as an individual but also on organizations that make economic and financial decisions and initiatives. This paper examines the EU countries progress toward green economy, identifies the relationship with financial and economic indicators and analyses the role of eco-innovation performance and innovative capacity toward green transition to meet the European Green Deal objectives. Complex theoretical, methodological and empirical research methodology was adopted by using specific methods of investigation: critical analysis of the literature, complex quantitative and qualitative analysis, identification, construction and the appropriate processing of existing databases. The numerical results were obtained by the SPSS software package. The paper’s outcome identifies barriers and success factors in the implementation of the EU’s main new growth strategy, highlights that the green transformation process of the economy needs large investments in innovation and eco-innovation and needs the green finance to be covered also by the public and private sector on national and EU level and from the EU budget as well.