Small countries in the context of EU socio-economic security: a case of selected countries

Security is one of the most important and interesting issues in the modern world. The importance of security stems from the many changes that shape the expected, unwavering functioning of states. The definition of socio-economic security in the subjective and objective procedural dimension allows one to reflect the complexity and multi-aspect nature of economic, social and political processes and, through this, visualise changes, predict risks, and build action scenarios. Ensuring socio-economic security is becoming one of the main goals of countries' domestic and foreign policy, and initiatives in this area are taken with full awareness of the changes in the international arena. The lack of a unified toolkit for the assessment of socio-economic security complicates the processes of economic stabilisation and territorial development. The category of economic security is complex, multifaceted and has many features. Therefore, the use of a multi-factor approach to the assessment of economic security is justified. The evaluation of economic security is possible if formal approaches using specific indicators are used. The practical implementation of the analytical and regulatory components of ensuring economic security requires an economic assessment based on and compared to threshold values. It is necessary to continuously study the economic situation according to the selected system of indicators to control the level of economic security and develop expected threat preventive measures. The article aims to create a methodology for assessing socio-economic security and use it to determine the socio-economic security of Latvia in the context of EU countries.