European Sovereignty Index: Poland ranked 22nd in the EU

The European Council on Foreign Relations, in collaboration with Stiftung Mercator, on Wednesday (June 8) published the European Sovereignty Index - a ranking of EU member states according to the level of sovereignty.

The authors of the index "believe that the EU can both overcome the new challenges it faces and shape the global order", but in order to achieve this, "EU member states will need to steadily expand their joint capacity to act".

"The best way to adjust to this new era is to build European sovereignty," they stressed.

The EU member states have been ranked on a scale between 1 and 10 in six categories: climate, defence, economy, health, migration, technology. The experts examined both capabilities and commitments of each country in these areas separately.

Polska - ze średnim wynikiem 4,7 - w ogólnym rankingu znalazła się na 22 miejscu wśród 27 państw UE. W poszczególnych kategoriach eksperci ocenili Polskę następująco:

With the average score of 4.7, Poland has been ranked 22nd out of 27 EU members states. The experts ranked Poland the following way:

Climate - 4.2, Defence - 4.9, Economy - 5.6, Health - 4.4, Migration - 4.3, Technology - 3.6.

According to authors of the ranking, Poland is an underperformer, that is a "country with low or very low scores", which "does not pull its weight in strengthening European sovereignty, due to insufficient resources, commitment, or both in multiple areas of sovereignty".

"With the lowest overall scores of the EU’s five largest members, Poland performs especially poorly in technology, climate, migration, and health. It ranks among the bottom five in these areas," we read in the report.

"Despite Poland’s huge effort to help Ukrainian refugees, its capabilities in this area are still 'poor', while its commitment to EU-level migration management is relatively weak," the authors wrote.

"The country makes a better contribution to European sovereignty in economy and defence. However, in neither of these domains does Poland receive a 'good' overall score. This is chiefly due to its limited capabilities – which contrast with its relatively strong commitment," reads the report.

The average score for all European Union member states is 5.9. The average scores in each category look as follows:

Climate - 5.4, Defence - 5.9, Economy 6.2, Health 6.7, Migration 5.2, Technology 4.8.

The top five places in the average score ranking were taken by: Germany (6.9), Netherlands (6.8), France (6.6), Sweden (6.5) and Denmark (6.5).

The worst-scoring five countries were: Bulgaria (3.9), Hungary (3.9), Slovakia (4.4), Romania (4.4) and Cyprus (4.6).

The authors grouped the countries according to their overall result the following way: scores of 7 states were graded as "good", 10 countries were graded as "satisfactory", 8 were graded as "poor", and 2 as "failing".