BENCHMARKING AGRICULTURAL AND OTHER ENVIRONMENTAL PERFORMANCES OF CENTRAL AND EAST EUROPEAN COUNTRIES

Enhancing agricultural and other environmental performances has become an essential part of sustainable development policy in countries around the globe. Although Europe is considered as a global leader in the environmental competitiveness, the national economies within Europe region achieve different results in this field. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate current agricultural and other environmental performances of sixteen Central and East European (CEE) countries, but also to identify critical determinants for its improvement in the future period. The research is conducted through comparative analysis, benchmarking method, and correlation analysis. The data basis includes the Environmental Performance Index (2018). The research findings suggest the inferiority of CEE countries in the comparison with the best-ranked European countries. The paper contributes to the sustainability literature and could serve as a practical guide in the process of formulating the development policies connected with agricultural and other enviromnental performances in CEE countries. (C) 2019 EA. All rights reserved.