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The evaluation criteria to measure the efficiency of a state's economic policy in terms of integration processes in the European Union were determined in the Europe 2020 Strategy endorsed by the European Council in June 2010. According to the Strategy, the European Union has committed to seek progress in the fields of employment, investment in R&D, climate change and energy, education, and poverty reduction. With a view to assessing the economic impact of the above commitments by the European Union vis-a-vis small European Union countries, this article provides an evaluation of the three objectives of the Europe 2020 Strategy -employment, education, and investment in R&D -and their impact on the economic growth in smaller countries of the European Union.This article concludes that many of the smaller European Union countries choose not to be ambitious enough in their national objectives of employment, education, and investment in R&D areas under the Europe 2020 Strategy and, during the 2011-2020 period, they show on average a 4.8% lower annual GDP growth than it could potentially be, i.e. they abandon far-reaching ambitious targets.

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All countries of the European Union (EU) have had their economies impacted by COVID-19 and should focus their efforts on managing the negative impacts on their GDP growth. Since EU countries vary considerably in many criteria, the same policy would not fit all EU countries. This paper analyzes how sustainable economic growth could be maintained in the long run while considering three criteria, including R&D investment, gross value added per employee and country size by population; and which factors could have the highest impacts on economic growth in the recovery process according to supply and demand. Countries were examined according to the mentioned criteria by applying the panel least squares method. The major estimation outputs show the stronger effect of the supply side on economic growth, the higher role of human capital in small EU countries where R&D investment exceeds 3% of GDP, and the critical effect of exports on GDP growth in the large EU countries with the lowest R&D investment. This segment depends the most on smooth exports of goods and service flows and could be the most vulnerable under COVID-19 conditions. Therefore, seeking to keep economic growth on track, EU countries should use different strategies and fiscal measures depending on the most vulnerable factors for their economic growth. In addition, this is the right time to revise values of economic growth, and governments should be more focused on the recovery of their economies on the sustainable development goals (SDGs) agenda.

The paper deals with a highly complicated problem related to the development of economic relations between the European Union and the so-called Eastern Partnership countries-Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. The essence of the problem is the extremely excessive level of the shadow economy in the Eastern Partnership countries: the shadow economy considerably affects the situation in the Eastern Partnership countries and it causes in addition a profound negative impact on the economic cooperation with the European Union. The assessment and monitoring of shifts in shadow economies in the Eastern Partnership countries is a crucial issue for the European Union, in particular to make responsible and reasoned policy decisions on the economic cooperation between the European Union and the Eastern Partnership countries. This fact leads to the needs to create and use adequate instruments for modelling and evaluating the shadow economy. The opportunities of using various tools for modelling and evaluating the shadow economy are discussed herein. The main focus of attention is directed to the new integrated approach to shadow economy modelling: this approach is distinguished by the fact that the shadow economy is analyzed and assessed in a holistic manner upon taking into account the different aspects of economic life and economic development processes. A new model applicable to the assessment of the shadow economy in the Eastern Partnership countries is described; this model is based on the idea of the so-called Tanzi model and was developed by covering the traditionally used independent variables such as taxes, wages and salaries, as well as the new modified indicators. The paper describes empirical research on modelling and estimating of the scope and dynamics of the shadow economy in the Eastern Partnership countries, as well as the principal results of the said research. It has been shown that the shadow economy in the Eastern Partnership countries is highly, extensively and even dangerously developed. The results of the research show an existence of a link between the size of the shadow economy and the control of corruption, but this link is very diverse in different countries. The methodological approach and research results presented in the paper can be used to create a decision support system for the development of the economic relations between the European Union and the Eastern Partnership countries.