Sustainable development is firmly anchored in the European Treaties and has been at the heart of European policy for a long time. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), adopted by the UN General Assembly in September 2015, gives a new impetus to global efforts for achieving sustainable development. The EU is fully committed to playing an active role to maximise progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals. This publication marks the beginning of Eurostat’s regular monitoring of progress towards the SDGs in an EU context. The analysis in this publication builds on the EU SDG indicator set, developed in cooperation with a large number of stakeholders. The indicator set comprises 100 indicators and is structured along the 17 SDGs. For each SDG, it focuses on aspects which are relevant from an EU perspective. The monitoring report provides a statistical presentation of trends relating to the SDGs in the EU over the past five years (‘short-term’) and, when sufficient data are available, over the past 15 years (‘long-term’). The indicator trends are described on the basis of a set of specific quantitative rules.