Sustainable development goals

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Global framework

The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and their 169 targets provide a worldwide policy framework towards ending all forms of poverty, fighting inequalities and tackling climate change, while ensuring that no one is left behind. These aspects are at the heart of the UN's 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Role of the European Commission

In its communication ‘Next steps for a sustainable European future’, the European Commission fully committed to the 2030 Agenda. The ‘Key European action supporting the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development’ will bring tangible progress in the areas of the SDGs, and the European Commission holds firmly to the 'EU holistic approach to sustainable development’. To underline this, progress towards the SDGs has been embedded into the European Semester spring package.

Role of Eurostat

Regular monitoring and reporting is essential for the Commission’s continued dedication to sustainable development. Eurostat regularly monitors the EU’s progress towards the SDGs, publishing annual assessment reports. Making use of high-quality statistics of the European Statistical System and complementary data from partner institutions, Eurostat coordinates the development of the EU SDG indicator set and keeps it up to date.

Monitoring of EU progress towards the SDGs

The European Commission has engaged in a regular assessment of EU progress towards the SDGs. The most recent monitoring exercise resulted in the Eurostat publication Sustainable Development in the European Union – Monitoring report on progress towards the SDGs in an EU context – 2025 edition. It focusses on aspects of the SDGs that are relevant from an EU perspective. It does not assess EU progress towards the 169 targets of the 2030 Agenda.

The monitoring builds on the EU SDG indicator set, which comprises 102 indicators structured along the 17 SDGs. Each goal has 6 indicators that are exclusively attributed to it. 33 of the 102 indicators are multipurpose, meaning they are used to monitor more than one SDG. All indicators are grouped in sub-themes to underline interlinkages and highlight different aspects of each SDG.

The monitoring provides a statistical assessment of short-term developments in the EU, looking at the most recent five years of available data, and – whenever data availability allows – the long-term development over the past 15 years.

26 of the 102 indicators are assessed against quantitative EU targets. 14 indicators refer to socio-economic targets such as reducing poverty and increasing education and labour market participation. 12 indicators are linked to environmental targets in areas such as climate and energy. Indicators without quantitative policy targets are evaluated based on the direction and rate of change. The methodology is explained in detail in the ‘Methodology’ section.