On  May 25, 2022, the Federal Council adopted a report entitled ‘Ex-ante assessment of the impact of free trade agreements on sustainable development’. The report identifies available methodologies that can be used to evaluate in advance (ex ante) the potential impact of free trade agreements (FTAs) on sustainable development. Ex-ante sustainability analyses can be … More Swiss Federal Council to analyse sustainability effects of important free trade agreements in a targeted manner in future

    In February 2022, 54 565 first-time asylum applicants (non-EU citizens) applied for international protection in the EU Member States, up 85 % compared with February 2021 (29470) and up 3 % compared with January 2022 (52810). The increase from January to February 2022 can be largely attributed to the increase in Ukrainian first-time … More Increase in Ukrainian first-time asylum seekers

In 2021, exports of waste from the EU to non-EU countries reached 33.0 million tonnes, an increase of 77% since 2004. Imports of waste from non-EU countries increased by 11% since 2004, amounting to 19.7 million tonnes in 2021.         Turkey: main destination for EU’s waste exports Turkey is the largest destination … More What are the main destinations of EU export of waste?

  Eurostat published on May 24, 2022, the 2022 monitoring report on progress towards the SDGs in an EU context, which shows that over the last five years the climate action goal (SDG 13) has had moderate progress. This goal calls for urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts. It aims to limit … More Moderate progress on SDG13 – climate action

In 2019, the EU emitted around 3.1 gigatonnes (Gt) of CO2, less than 9% of the worldwide CO2 emissions for that year. Consumption in the EU was responsible for 3.4 Gt of CO2 emissions, representing 10% of global CO2 emissions. Using the FIGARO Multi-Regional Input-Output (MRIO) model, Eurostat estimates the volume of CO2 emitted in … More EU’s CO2 footprint continues to decrease