No abstract

Eco-innovations according the European Commission determine the future of Europe and stand at the heart of the EU's policies. The focus of the Europe 2020 Strategy is on smart, sustainable, and inclusive growth. Eco-innovations are perceived as a critical for carrying out objectives of the Strategy. To deliver the objectives of the Strategy, Eco-Innovation Action Plan (EcoAP) was adopted by the European Commission in 2011, and now it represents not only a crucial part of the European policy framework for sustainable production and consumption, which supports a set of environmental initiatives but also serves a crucial factor to following the goals of the circular economy. At the same time, it is not clear empirically how eco-innovations are linked with the progress of the EU countries towards sustainable and circular economy.

In current paper, we have researched the influence of environmental policy stringency (EPS) on economic development of the EU-28. The problem of identifying the influence of stringency of environmental policy (EP) on economic development of the EU-28 is that currently there is no well-established understanding of what economic results can be achieved depending on the extent of EPS within a separate country. The paper aims at making contribution to theoretical, empirical and political scopes of perception of EP as an independent factor of economic development of the EU-28. The results of research indicate that EPS is significant factor of economic development of the EU countries.