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This paper aims to investigate the energy development in terms of renewable energy in the Eastern Bloc European Union member states. Energy is a topic of planetary implications and the analysis of the development of renewable energy sources (RES) in parts of the world where the fossil fuels are scarce is of tremendous importance. In the first section, the paper concisely explores the energy landscape of the European Union (EU), revealing important concerns. The second section introduces an index of renewable energy development (IRED) which captures the complexity of the development of RES and is based on two components, each containing three factors built on efforts and outcomes in RES development. IRED is further applied on a cross-country analysis based on the Eastern Bloc of the EU member states for 2005-2015 interval, revealing the best and worst performers. The application of IRED might contribute to a better understanding of the needed efforts required by different countries in their quest towards energy security, efficient energy use and emissions control. The findings of this paper might conduct to the identification of the best practices which could be spread throughout EU and might contribute to a more rigorous development of policymaking in the energy area.

This paper aims to advocate for a sustainable healthcare system and the need for pursuing a new set of goals in designing it, given the current challenges in European Union (EU28). The EU28 member states are in different phases of economic integration, and yet far from an authentic integrated market. Despite the real gains in other domains, such as commercial and competition, public health is very different across the EU28 space and lacks a common integrated and sustainable approach. Herein a sustainable healthcare model is introduced and is based on four components, two for the inputs and two for the outputs of the healthcare system, each component being further categorized into two factors. The method consists of the assessment of a new and suggestive common index of sustainable healthcare (ISH). The methodology consists of five steps: data gathering, data validation, normalization of data by applying the utilities theory, aggregation of data, and construction of the ISH index. The methodology allows the assessment of a composite ISH which captures the complexity of the national healthcare systems. The ISH is then applied to specific circumstances from different countries and is used in a cross-country analysis to determine the progress towards a sustainable healthcare.

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