{"id":3147,"date":"2019-03-14T11:12:46","date_gmt":"2019-03-14T09:12:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/osis.bg\/?p=3147"},"modified":"2019-03-14T11:12:47","modified_gmt":"2019-03-14T09:12:47","slug":"new-edition-of-the-catch-up-index","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/osis.bg\/?p=3147&lang=en","title":{"rendered":"New edition of The Catch-Up Index"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"td-module-meta-info\">14.03.2019<\/div>\n\n\n<p>The so-called new EU member states (EU10+1) have been converging with the rest, but the process has slowed down in recent years and there are already differences in the group as some are diverging or stagnating in the different categories.<\/p>\n<p>In Index 2018, the five best performing countries by overall score (this is the average of the four categories) are Denmark (1<sup>st<\/sup> with 71 points), Sweden (2<sup>nd<\/sup> with 70 points), Luxemburg (3<sup>rd<\/sup> with 70 points), the Netherlands (4<sup>th<\/sup> with 70 points) and Finland (5<sup>th<\/sup> with 69 points) in the ranking of 35 countries in on a scale from 100 to 0 points, highest to lowest. The five most poorly performing countries by overall score are BiH (35<sup>th<\/sup> with 35 points), Turkey (34<sup>th<\/sup> with 22 points), Macedonia (33<sup>rd<\/sup> with 24 points), Albania (32<sup>nd<\/sup> with 25 points) and Serbia (31<sup>st<\/sup> with 29 points).<\/p>\n<p><script id=\"infogram_0_4957aace-28c7-4dfa-a39d-7e0419c0f1c6\" title=\"The Catch Up Index 2018_EN\" src=\"https:\/\/e.infogram.com\/js\/dist\/embed.js?c7j\" type=\"text\/javascript\"><\/script>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>There are clear geographical patterns in Index 2018 as there is divide especially between the best performing countries in Western core and Northern Europe and those in Southeastern Europe. Thus, the Balkan countries, which include the EU candidates (with Turkey too) and EU member states (including the close neighbor Hungary), are lagging behind in almost all respects.<\/p>\n<p>The long-term trends in the period 2011-2018 show that a number of old EU member states such as Ireland, Portugal and Cyprus as well as Iceland are progressing in recent years, and even Greece shows small signs of improvement, which means many of the crisis-ridden of the 2008 Great Recession countries are recovering.<\/p>\n<p>There are three new EU member states&nbsp; in Index 2018 that are very close to the desired average benchmark of 60 points \u2013 Estonia (13<sup>th <\/sup>position) with 57 points, the Czech Republic (14<sup>th<\/sup>) with 55 points and Slovenia (15<sup>th<\/sup>) with 54 points. The success stories of the catching-up show that geography is not necessarily destiny and countries can improve their fortunes.<\/p>\n<p>For the eighth consecutive year, The Catch-Up Index measures and classifies the achievements of 35 countries in Europe &#8211; EU and candidate countries &#8211; by 47 indicators divided into four categories: economy, democracy, quality of life and governance.<\/p>\n<p>For more details, please visit the <a href=\"https:\/\/osis.bg\/?p=3146&amp;lang=en\"><strong>Analyses and Reports<\/strong><\/a> section.<\/p>\n<p>Full text of the report <a href=\"https:\/\/osis.bg\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/HowHardCanItBe_CatchUpIndex2018_ReportMarch2019_.pdf\"><strong>How Hard Can It Be? Findings of the European Catch-Up Index 2018<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The Catch-Up Index is a project of the European Policy Initiative (EuPI) of the Open Society Institute \u2013 Sofia.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The so-called new EU member states (EU10+1) have been converging with the rest, but the process has slowed down in recent years and there are already differences in the group as some are diverging or stagnating in the different categories. In Index 2018, the five best performing countries by overall score (this is the average [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3145,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[120],"tags":[184],"class_list":["post-3147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-catch-up-index-news","tag-europe"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/osis.bg\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/osis.bg\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/osis.bg\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/osis.bg\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/osis.bg\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/osis.bg\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3147\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/osis.bg\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/osis.bg\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/osis.bg\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/osis.bg\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}