The wealth of the nations: Romania climbs 4 positions, until 29th place. “In Europe, the growth is generated by countries such as Poland, Romania, Czech Republic and Croatia,” say the authors of a report

This year's edition of the Nations Audation Index (INN) is special. A few years ago, when the first index was published, two years were compared: 2015 and 2021. “The 2025 edition of the Nations Index allows us to evaluate how the situation of the countries studied in the last ten years has been changed,” the authors of the report notes.

The Institute of Entrepreneurship in Warsaw has published the fifth edition of the Nations Index, an index that measures among others the quality of public spending, in addition to GDP and other indicators. The countries belonging to the European Union and OECD are also considered.

The places on the podium are occupied by Ireland, Switzerland and Norway, which this year have managed to overcome the United States.

Usually, when we talk about the development of countries, we focus on the gross national product. Those who are not satisfied with this and believe that development does not only mean growth, indicate other indices, such as human development index or world happiness.

The index, developed by economist Karol Zdybel, presents a wide understanding of the concept of development. On the one hand, attention is paid to the dynamics of private expenses per capita, on the other hand the quality of public expenses in 8 categories (defense, security, infrastructure, higher education, health) and other indicators related to the quality of democracies.

The period from 2015 until now can be conventionally divided into three periods. By the beginning of 2020, Poland faced a dynamic economic growth. Other European economies were developing, but at a much slower pace, the document shows.

Between 2020-2022, it was the global pandemic crisis. This period is marked by recessions of different magnitudes in various countries in the world.

The third period is the one in which we have been operating for several years: an economy without a single dominant crisis, but burdened by numerous (sometimes serious) problems, such as the impact of the Ukraine war on supply chains, high energy prices, inflation or commercial protectionism; Some of these are temporary, others permanent.

It is striking that, in recent years, America has been more resistant to economic turbulence than Europe, notes the report of the report. This has been emphasized in the last year by journalists or economists such as Matthew Karnitschnig and Daniel Mitchell (the latter in an article with the spelling title “European policies = European stagnation”).

America leaves Europe behind, as figures like GDP on the inhabitant, but also the development of modern economic sectors. Even in the mid -1990s, the national income per German citizen was comparable to the American one; Today, in similar comparisons, the top economies of the old continent are poor US cousins.

European stagnation can also be observed in WNI. The United States obtained a score of 110.0 in this year's edition – with a little 0.3 higher than a year ago. Since its debut in the WNI ranking, two years ago, the US took a small step forward every year.

Not the same can be said about Western Europe. Germany (92 points, identical to a year ago), Austria (94.2 – down 2.2 points compared to 2024 and up to 5.8 compared to 2021), Denmark (103.4 – down 0.4) nor the United Kingdom (81.2 – down 4.2) have managed to improve its score. The average WNI index of the countries of the European Union stopped at a level of 75 points in 2021.

Although it is slightly growth in the Union in general, this growth is generated by countries in Central Europe, such as Poland, Romania, the Czech Republic and Croatia.

Meanwhile, most of the rich countries of Europe have not yet recovered after the Covid-19 Pandemic. Under the WNI indicator of 2021, besides Austria, Belgium, Germany, Spain, France, Finland, as well as the Czech Republic and Estonia, although in the last two countries this is attributed exclusively to the decline between 2024 and 2025.