2014-12 Best countries to do business in Europe

EuCham – European Chamber conducts research on finding the most favourable country for conducting business in Europe, analyzing 45 European countries. Favorability to do business score was calculated by integrating “ease to do business” data from Doing Business (DB) of the World Bank with Corruption Perception Index (CPI) data from Transparency International. The European Chamber believes that an ethical economic environment constitutes an essential part for successfully operating business.

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EuCham Research
December 2014

Best Countries to do business in Europe

1	Denmark	86%
2	Finland	83%
	Norway	83%
4	Sweden	82%
5	Iceland	80%
	United Kingdom	80%
…
45	Ukraine	51%

Favorability in doing business score in Europe calculated by using ease to do business data from World Bank, and Corruption Perception Index (CPI) from Transparency International.
45 European countries were considered

Denmark is ranked as the top country in Europe for doing business achieving 86% of the ideal conditions to conduct business, followed by other Scandinavian countries, Iceland and UK

The research blends the ease to do business with corruption and unethical behaviour risks in Europe

The lowest ranked European country at #45 is Ukraine with only 51%

Source: eucham.eu/research

Detailed Information

According to EuCham ranking, Denmark has the most favourable conditions to do business with 86% of the ideal conditions, and also ranks 3rd most favourable country in the world following New Zealand and Singapore. The countries following at the top of the list are Norway, Finland, Sweden, Iceland and UK. At the bottom of the list there are countries with high corruption risks such as Russia, Kosovo, Azerbaijan and Ukraine.

In conclusion, EuCham is highlighting the importance of a clean and ethical economy to conduct business. In fact, a an easy environment for doing business might not be the best for ethical entrepreneurs if the country is also exposed to high risks of corruption. A correlation is evident between unfavourable business conditions and the risk of malpractices. However, further research may be conducted by including environmental and social data, thus identifying the ideal location for ethical businesses.

Methodology

The scores indicate the performance of each country in achieving ideal conditions to conduct business. The score is calculated by weighting DB and CPI scores respectively as 75% and 25% of the final value.

Table 1: Best countries to do business in Europe

EuCham rank	Country	EuCham score (%)	World Bank rank	Transparency International rank
1	Denmark	86.1	1	1
2	Finland	83.1	2	4
	Norway	83.1	4	2
4	Sweden	81.9	6	3
5	Iceland	80.1	7	8
	United Kingdom	80.1	3	10
7	Germany	79.8	5	9
8	Switzerland	78.7	13	5
9	Ireland	77.2	10	12
10	Netherlands	77.0	16	6
11	Estonia	76.2	9	14
12	Austria	75.8	11	13
13	Portugal	72.8	8	17
14	Georgia	72.7	14	25
15	Belgium	72.3	23	11
16	France	71.4	20	15
	Lithuania	71.4	15	20
18	Latvia	71.2	12	22
19	Luxembourg	70.5	33	7
20	Poland	70.3	17	18
21	Spain	69.2	19	19
22	Slovenia	66.9	25	21
23	Slovakia	66.3	21	27
24	Macedonia	65.8	18	29
25	Cyprus	65.2	26	26
26	Czech Republic	65.1	34	16
27	Bulgaria	64.5	22	31
28	Hungary	63.6	24	35
29	Montenegro	63.5	32	24
30	Turkey	62.5	29	30
31	Romania	62.1	30	33
32	Italy	61.9	28	34
33	Armenia	61.2	27	38
34	Croatia	60.3	37	28
35	Malta	60.2	42	23
36	Greece	59.5	36	32
37	Belarus	58.1	31	42
38	Serbia	57.8	38	36
39	Moldova	55.9	40	39
40	Kosovo	55.5	35	44
	Russia	55.5	39	41
42	Bosnia and Herzegovina	54.9	43	37
43	Azerbaijan	53.7	44	40
44	Albania	53.1	41	43
45	Ukraine	50.9	45	45

Sources: World Bank (2014), Transparency International (2014)
EuCham Research Department – Compiled by Luca Nazzicone and Kim Dung Tran 2014-12-17