A Comparative Analysis of the Circular Economy Strategies of the EU Member States

Abstract

This paper focuses on the circular economy and, within this, on the strategies prepared by EU Member States to move towards a circular economy. The European Commission’s 2014 Communication “Towards a Circular Economy: a Zero Waste Europe” launched the transition to a Circular Economy (CE) in EU Member States. Subsequently, not only has the EU issued a CE Action Plan and a number of documents over the last 9 years, but Member States have also developed their own national strategies for the transition to CE during this period. These strategies vary from country to country, not only being country-specific, but also very heterogeneous in their name, composition, form, objectives and timeframe. The main research question of this paper is what the EU Member States’ circular strategies contain, and what the member states focus on within each of the categories I have chosen, what are the common points, and above all, the similarities and differences along the individual categories. To answer the “what” question, I used quantitative content analysis, while to answer the “what kind of” question, I used qualitative discourse analysis. The research is timely because by 2023, all EU countries without exception will finally have published their CE strategies. Previous studies that have looked at similar aspects only provide partial comparisons, as not all countries had a CE strategy.