Sustainable Energy Development and Sustainable Economic Development in EU Countries

Sustainable development is the subject of many economic analyses, but so far no attempt has been made to identify the main mechanism of interdependence between sustainable energy development and sustainable economic development in the second decade of the 21st century. The particular role of energy in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals is due to the fact that the production, supply and use of energy underpin economic growth. The article fills this research gap and spawns both a better understanding of the essence of sustainable development as well as practical conclusions. The aim is to assess sustainable energy development and sustainable economic development in EU member states and to determine the correlation between the two in the EU. Substantive and formal methods were used to select diagnostic variables, including: the parametric method, the standardized sums method, and correlation analysis. The analysis period covers the years 2014-2021. The conducted research demonstrated a significant variation in the level of sustainable energy development and sustainable economic development among EU countries.