The 'Normandy Index', now in its third year, aims to measure the level of threats to peace, security and democracy around the world. It was presented for the first time on the occasion of the Normandy Peace Forum in June 2019, as a result of a partnership between the European Parliament and the Region of Normandy. The Index has been designed and prepared by the European Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS), in conjunction with and on the basis of data provided by the Institute for Economics and Peace. This paper sets out the findings of the 2021 exercise and explains how the Index can be used to compare peace – defined on the basis of a given country's performance against a range of predetermined threats – across countries and regions. It is complemented by 51 individual country case studies, derived from the Index.

The Normandy index establishes a country ranking for the entire world. It correlates 11 dangers which threaten peace: climate change, cyber security, economic crises, energy dependence, fragile states, the murder rate, freedom of the press, terrorism, armed conflicts and weapons of mass destruction.

 

The results of the Normandy Index 2021 (on 2020 data) display new challenges:

"The past year has made clear the multiple consequences of protracted crises in our neighbourhood, but also new global challenges such as the Covid-19 pandemic and its economic and social consequences." David Maria Sassoli, President of the European Parliament

Among the most threatened nations are Syria, Central African Republic, Afghanistan, Yemen and South Sudan.

 

An interactive website for the Normandy Index

The European Parliament created an interactive map to understand the level of threats to peace for each country, with an option to select the threats: climate change, cyber security, economic crises, energy dependence, fragile states, the murder rate, freedom of the press, terrorism, armed conflicts and weapons of mass destruction.

On this website, a comparison tool is also proposed to weigh the results of several selected countries over the years. Moreover, a timeline is retracing the evolution of conflicts country by country according to data of the three studies of the Normandy Index. 

 

Discover the interactive website

PE site