Towards a cleaner, greener, and more competitive European Union

For years the European Union (EU) has been a global leader in the field of climate change. A big step in internal climate policy was taken in 2019, with the presentation of the European Green Deal (EGD). By committing to this plan, the EU strives to become the first climate-neutral continent. To make the EU more competitive, the Union strives to have a circular economy. To do so, the EU in March 2020 adopted the Circular Economy Action Plan (CEAP). This plan, as a part of the EGD, lays out the objectives, plan, and strategy for the EU to transit into a circular economy (CE). This research focuses on the expected compliance to this plan by the 27 EU MS. It does so through formulating a conceptual framework on compliance, based on theory and literature. The expected compliance is researched through the identification of the presence of two factors on the EU level, and seven factors on the member state level. The outcome of the analysis is visualized and color-coded in a table, indicating to what extent factors are identified as present. Results indicate that in general ambitions among EU MS to transition to a CE are high. However, there are factors that still are bumps on the road towards complete circularity, such as financial instability and lack of knowledge and awareness of citizens on climate change.