AUTHORS: Misty Monteville – Marianne Kettunen

This IEEP briefing provides a review of the European Union’s progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in advance of the UN High-level Political Forum (HLPF) to be held at the United Nations (UN) headquarters in New York on 9 – 18 July 2019 and followed by the SDG Summit in September 2019.

The briefing provides an overview of the key issues at stake in the UN meetings and on the progress made on the implementation of the SDGs by the EU. It focuses in particular on the SDGs that will be reviewed in depth at the July Forum and that are of particular immediate significance to the environment (SDGs 13 and 16).

The briefing presents the different components of the EU’s reporting to the HLPF in July, including the 2019 Eurostat report on sustainable development in the European Union. It also draws on non-EU sources, such as the global Sustainable Development Report 2019.

This briefing complements recent short analyses of the global Sustainable Development Report 2019 and the 2019 Eurostat report.