Patterns in Progress: a Taxonomic Analysis of EU Countries by Sustainability and Living Standards in 2015–2023

Sustainable development of territorial units and the standard of living of inhabitants have recently become the subject of economic analysis and scientific research, as well as public debate. The research aimed to assess the position of European Union (EU) countries and changes in terms of sustainable development and the standard of living of inhabitants. In this paper, we applied a hybrid multi-criteria decision-making procedure for assessing the level of sustainable development and standard of living of residents in EU countries. This procedure is based on the modified positional technique for order of preference by similarity to the ideal solution (MP-TOPSIS). The research utilized data from the Eurostat database from 2015–2023. The standard of living of inhabitants of EU countries was assessed, as well as the level of their sustainable development. The results of the research made it possible to determine the relationship between the standard of living of the population and the level of sustainable development in EU countries. The conducted research revealed that the level of sustainable development of EU countries and the standard of living of inhabitants was strongly differentiated but increasing throughout analysed period.