National circular economy policies

Since 2015 Member States started developing CE strategies, action plans and roadmaps. The cumulative number of countries that have adopted national policies provides an indicator for stakeholder engagement in CE from national policy makers across the EU 27 through the years since 2015. The CEAP 2020 reiterates the importance of national policies, and the table below shows the evolution of published national policy documents across EU member states.

These policy documents are generally designed to cover an operational period of several years; and in some cases, countries have already adopted second version or updated the original policy.

The European Commission raised the interest for circular economy by launching the first Circular Economy Action Plan (CEAP) in 2015. The 54 measures under the action plan aimed to accelerate Europe’s transition by helping "close the loop" of product lifecycles through greater recycling and re-use; and bring benefits for both the environment and the economy. To encourage Member States to contribute to the development of a circular economy, the CEAP 2015 stated: “Member States are invited to play their full part in EU action, integrating and complementing it with national action.” This metric explores progress across Member States in this regard.

There is currently no official EU-level data source that structurally gathers national and regional thematic policies. EEA/ETC gathered these policies through a survey on a voluntary basis in the context of the “Even More from Less” report published by the EEA in 2019. In 2022 a second survey was conducted with participation from all EU-27 Member States.