GDP has been since the Great Depression the indicator that reflects the value of all goods and services produced or provided a country in a  year, but does not accurately reflect the general welfare. Therefore, the EU looks for other ways to measure the economic capacity of countries and assess their economic progress.

Recent surveys show that over two thirds of the citizens of Europe think that welfare should not be measured only in economic terms. They consider it necessary to take into account social and ecological welfare and GDP does not address this need.

The GDP does not indicate how the wealth of a nation is distributed. This means that a country with a large number of poor may have a relatively high GDP if there is much wealth concentrated in a few people.

Another drawback of this indicator is that it covers all economic activities, including the harmful ones. If a city is ravaged by war or earthquake, its reconstruction will generate further growth, so it will eventually reflected as a positive factor for the economy.

Although so far the EU has used GDP to measure development, the Commission has proposed the following goals:

• Define a global environmental index that takes into account climate change, biodiversity, air pollution, water use and waste, as the Europeans have expressed concern about the environmental impact of their activities.
  
• Find ways to provide more accurate information about economic disparities
  
• Intensify efforts to improve the updating of the data and determine threshold values for key pollutants and renewable resources.