CLASSIFICATION OF EUROPEAN UNION COUNTRIES ACCORDING TO NATIONAL COMPETITIVENESS AND SOVEREIGN DEBT LEVELS

National competitiveness is defined by World Economic Forum as "the set of institutions, policies, and factors that determine the level of productivity of a country". Therefore, the competitiveness of the European Union member states will be analyzed in the context of the governments' economic policies implemented in the previous period that had as main effects an increased public debt and an exposure of European Union to sovereign debt crisis. This paper attempts to examine how public debt takes its toll on the competitiveness of the EU member countries. So, the researchers will explore the strength of the connection between the percentage of public debt in GDP and the national competitiveness, aiming to a further segmentation of the European Union member countries according to the results.