For the European Union, innovation and entrepreneurship are strong vectors to overcome global societal challenges from climate change and sustainable energy to food and healthy living. Innovation is a facilitator of entrepreneurship and a way of empowering people to take charge of their lives and economic prosperity. At the same time, entrepreneurship is the answer to innovation, the concepts of innovation and entrepreneurship being undeniably interrelated. This research proposes assessing the potential for innovation and entrepreneurship in EU countries in the context of sustainable development. With the help of hierarchical clustering analysis, EU countries were classified into four relevant clusters on the basis of the variables considered, which allowed the identification of common features and existing differences. The research was conducted using data provided by the Global Innovation Index, Global Entrepreneurship Index, Eurostat database, and Candriam ESG Country Report at the level of the 27 EU countries. The main results revealed high-performing countries in terms of innovation and entrepreneurship potential, providing relevant information for policy-makers, business practitioners, NGOs, and academics on the direction they need to take for good practice models to be adapted and implemented in countries with sub-optimal performance, to provide them with support for improvement of their innovation and entrepreneurship potential.

Reducing inequalities within and among countries is one of the main tenets of the sustainable development paradigm and has become an important pillar at the European Union level. By adopting the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, EU countries have committed themselves to meet targets against which progress in reducing inequalities can be measured. Through the present research, we aim to analyze and assess the extent to which EU countries will achieve the specific SDG 10 targets. Based on data published by Eurostat for the period 2010–2020, we forecast the trends of the indicators until the year 2030, using a model based on the AAA (Holt–Winters) version of exponential smoothing (ETS), to assess the degree to which the assumed targets will be reached. For more detailed information, we used dynamic indices to analyze the dynamics of the progress achieved. The results showed that it is difficult to clearly distinguish one or more countries as part of a group of high or low performers in terms of the efforts made and the effects achieved in reducing inequalities. However, we could mention Poland as a good and very good performer on most of the indicators analyzed. As opposite examples, we can mention Bulgaria and Greece, for which more attention and involvement are needed in adopting measures to correct the negative trend forecast.

The policies of the European Union pursue a sustainable and balanced development of the territory of the Community, these aspects being found in the objectives of the UN Agenda for Sustainable Development 2030. Among these objectives are some in the field of agriculture and rural development such as: SDG 2: eradicating world hunger, EU agriculture ensures that food is produced sustainably for all EU citizens, and that EU food exports contribute to food security in third countries. EU rural development and agriculture policies also support other SDGs: SGD 1 (without poverty), DGS 8 (decent work and growth), SGD12 (responsible consumption and production) and SGD 15 (terrestrial life). The article analyses the National Rural Development Program that was created to support through non-reimbursable funds from the European Union and the Romanian Government the economic and social growth of rural areas in Romania, starting from the 6 priorities defined at the European Union level. Thus, we will study the rural development measures financed through the NRDP, in the period 2014-2020, with a total financial allocation of 9.333 billion euros, of which 8.015 billion euros from the EAFRD and 1.347 billion euros representing the national contribution. We will present these measures in detail, based on public data available in August 2021.

According to the objective of achieving "an intelligent, sustainable and inclusive growth" in the European Union (EU) 2020 agenda, the information disclosure regarding sustainability of large companies mainly aims to contribute to the potential of the single market, thus creating sustainable development and employment levels. It is very important for companies to increase their transparency for interested parties, improve their risk management and provide better results. High transparency, including the diversity of management bodies, determines the trust growth of people in companies and markets, and allows more efficient capital distribution and the possibility of making a more realistic decision (e.g., by investors) according to available information. For current challenges, such as global warming, effects of the consumption society on environment, emphasis of disparities, worsening of environmental problems and urbanization of population, related replied have been made, representing that more efforts have been made for the transition towards a green model and for meeting the sustainable development objectives. Significant steps have been taken in this direction, but greater efforts should be made. The new economic system should rely on sustainable development, which is the solution to overcome current social, environmental and economic problems. Non-financial reporting is just a tool. In order to add value, companies should use the tool to contribute more, thus being closer to the global initiatives related to the green economy and building a sustainable society. Increase of these global trends has a significant impact on business environment, leading to measures taken immediately. Therefore, the true benefits of non-financial reporting will not be noticed unless entities change their focus from strict evaluation of financial performance to non-financial elements and integrate sustainability in their business model. Meanwhile, companies should focus on reporting the aspects, which are significant for them, the interested parties and the investors, and ensure that all these aspects are communicated to the management. Analysis of the non-financial information, presented by the active entities in the field of electrical energy production in Romania between 2017-2020, showed that only six companies met the legal requirements of non-financial information disclosure, which are state-owned companies with full or majority state capital and state-owned companies/societies.