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Purpose: The aim of this paper is to present the differentiation in the level of economic development among the EU Member States in the context of the progress in implementing the concept of sustainable development. Design/Methodology/Approach: The time scope of the analysis involved the years 2014 and 2019, and the territorial one covered 27 EU countries. The research procedure used data from Eurostat and methods of descriptive statistics were applied, i.e. minimum value, maximum value, average, coefficient of variation. Findings: The discussion led to the identification and application of indicators that enable describing economic development in the context of sustainable development of the EU-27 countries in 2014 and 2019. Based on the presented results, it can be concluded that positive changes are taking place in many countries that are getting closer to the implementation of the sustainable development paradigm, which is one of the main priorities of the Europe 2020 Strategy: the long-term socio-economic program of the EU. Practical Implications: The results of the analysis conducted may contribute to the assessment of the effects of the development policy pursued in the EU-27 countries so far. Originality/value: Indicator analysis of the economy development of EU countries in the context of the implementation of the concept of sustainable development is not often undertaken in scientific research. ; peer-reviewed

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to focus on the analysis and assessment of the level of development of Industry 4.0, the social development in the context of the implementation of the concept of sustainable development and to determine the relationship of these phenomena in EU countries. Design/Methodology/Approach: Due to the fact that both Industry 4.0 and social development are complex issues, the research uses taxonomic measures based on the TOPSIS method, which replace the multi-feature description of the studied objects by a single aggregate size, which greatly facilitates their analysis. For the purposes of this article, an attempt was made to construct a synthetic measure of the development of Industry 4.0, as well as a synthetic measure of social development in the context of implementing the concept of sustainable development based on a previously selected set of diagnostic variables. The research also used the so-called threshold method to classify EU countries into homogeneous typological groups. In addition, a correlation analysis was carried out in order to examine whether there is a correlation between the analysed phenomena. Findings: The results of the research indicate that there is a moderate variation in the level of social development in the EU countries in the context of implementing the concept of sustainable development and a significant variation in the level of development of Industry 4.0. The analysis showed that there is a very high positive correlation between the two. Practical Implications: Modern economies are faced with the need to meet the challenges resulting from the fourth industrial revolution, for which the emergence of Industry 4.0 is significant. The changes resulting from the implementation of the concept of Industry 4.0 concern not only industry and its enterprises, but also affect the overall shape of socio-economic processes. Originality/value: Social development considered in connection with the development of Industry 4.0 a relatively new economic category, still not well described in the literature. The way they are combined in the article is a relatively new proposal, important from the point of view of each of these areas. ; peer-reviewed