Europe has achieved an average score of 0.60, making it the safest and most stable broad geographical territory included in the present analysis (in terms of the aggregated scores of its individual countries). The countries that achieve the highest individual scores within Europe are Germany, Norway, Austria and Switzerland.

 

However, Europe also has a number of key risk factors relating to current ongoing conflicts and challenges that bring its average score down, and which constitute key risks that should be prioritized and optimized moving forward. These factors include:

 

• The COVID-19 pandemic and its associated economic repercussions. The high number of politically independent but geographically proximal countries and territories within the EU increases the risk of rapid infection spread and a strong second wave of COVID-19 if countries begin relaxing border closures too early, and the high degree of economic interconnectedness of many European countries, decreases overall economic resiliency and heightens the dependence of many territories on the economic stability of allied and interconnected neighbors. Furthermore, any regions that rely on exports for a high percentage of their GDP are also heavily dependent on the economic success of its exports’ purchasers, and a financial downturn in those regions could trickle down to affect such countries as a result.

• Ongoing civilian protests, riots and unrest relating to the unfolding Black Lives Matter movement create a great deal of regional risk, and also indicate a high level of general unrest within the populace.