How the scores are calculated
Two numbers per product, both computed from the same record by code you can read. Nothing here is a judgement call made after the fact — if you disagree with a score, you are really disagreeing with a weight, and those are all listed below.
The one rule that matters
A value earns points only when it is backed by evidence. Every claim in a product record carries a source URL, the publisher type, an optional verbatim quote, and the date it was retrieved. A claim with no evidence is displayed — so you can see what we think is true — but it contributes exactly zero to the score.
How sources are weighted
For self-declared facts such as “assembled in Portugal”, the producer's own site is the authority, and our validator refuses evidence marked as coming from the producer unless the URL is actually on a domain that producer owns. For ownership, company registers outrank the company itself.
| Source type | Multiplier |
|---|---|
| producer | ×1 |
| official register | ×1 |
| regulator | ×1 |
| certifier | ×0.95 |
| press | ×0.6 |
| third party | ×0.5 |
How claims age
Companies get acquired, factories move, and hosting quietly migrates. A source is worth full value for 12 months, then slides down to 40% at 24 months and 25% after three years. Records with ageing sources are flagged on the page, and they are the first thing the re-verification pass picks up.
Country credit
Not every European country is in the EU, and pretending otherwise would make the score useless. Work done in each bloc earns a share of the criterion's weight.
EU member state
100% of the criterion's weight
EEA / EFTA
80% of the criterion's weight
EU candidate country
40% of the criterion's weight
Outside the EU/EEA
0% of the criterion's weight
Where the work is split across countries, criteria that ask “is any of this done in Europe?” take the best country, criteria about production take the average, and data hosting takes the worst — one backup region outside the EU is the whole point of asking.
The rubric
Physical products — EU-ness
| ManufacturingWhere does the last substantial manufacturing step happen? | 30 |
| Design & engineeringWhere is the product designed and engineered? | 15 |
| Company headquartersWhere is the company that sells this actually based? | 15 |
| Ownership & controlWho ultimately controls the company — an EU entity, or a foreign parent? | 20 |
| Materials & componentsDo the inputs come from inside the EU? | 10 |
| Supply-chain transparencyDoes the maker publish where and by whom the product is made? | 10 |
| Total | 100 |
Digital products — EU-ness
| Where it is builtWhere does the engineering team that builds this sit? | 20 |
| Data hostingIn which countries does customer data physically sit? | 20 |
| Company headquartersWhere is the company that sells this actually based? | 15 |
| Ownership & controlWho ultimately controls the company — an EU entity, or a foreign parent? | 20 |
| Legal jurisdictionCould a non-EU government compel access to this data? | 15 |
| Underlying infrastructureDoes it run on European infrastructure, or on a US hyperscaler? | 10 |
| Total | 100 |
Physical products — documented quality
| WarrantyHow long does the maker stand behind it? | 20 |
| RepairabilityCan it be repaired, and are parts and manuals available? | 25 |
| Independent certificationHas an outside body certified anything about this product? | 30 |
| Energy labelWhat is the EU energy class, where one applies? | 10 |
| Long-term supportHow long is the product supported after purchase? | 15 |
| Total | 100 |
Digital products — documented quality
| Open sourceCan the code be inspected and self-hosted? | 20 |
| Data portabilityCan you export your data in an open format and leave? | 15 |
| Independent certificationHas an outside body certified anything about this product? | 30 |
| Support & maintenanceHow long are updates and security fixes guaranteed? | 15 |
| Total | 80 |
Grades
| Grade | Score | Means |
|---|---|---|
| A | 80–100 | Made in the EU, end to end |
| B | 65–79 | Strongly European |
| C | 50–64 | Partly European |
| D | 35–49 | European in name mostly |
| E | 0–34 | Little verified European substance |
What we deliberately do not do
- No star ratings. Our scores are computed from documents, not collected from users, so they are never published as review markup.
- No guessing. A missing claim stays missing and costs points. We do not infer a factory location from a company address.
- No paid placement. Ranking is a function of the record, and the function is in the repository.
Questions
- What does the EU-ness score measure?
- It measures how much of a product's European claim can be evidenced: where it is manufactured or developed, where it is designed, who controls the company, and for digital products where data is hosted and which jurisdiction applies. Each criterion carries a fixed weight, and a criterion only earns points when a dated source backs it.
- Why does a product with a European brand score badly?
- Usually because the company is controlled from outside the EU, because manufacturing happens elsewhere, or because nobody has yet cited a source for either. Ownership and manufacturing are scored separately from where the marketing department sits.
- Does a high score mean a product is good?
- No. The EU-ness score says where something comes from, not whether it is any good. The separate quality score only counts things a maker publishes and commits to — warranty length, spare-part availability, support windows, independent certifications — so it measures documented quality and transparency, not user satisfaction.
- Can a company pay to be listed or ranked higher?
- No. There is no paid placement, no sponsored listing and no affiliate weighting in the ranking. The rubric is in the public repository and any score can be recomputed from the sources cited on the page.
Want to see it applied? A worked example scores a fictional product end to end.
Still not satisfied? Read the verification policy or challenge a record directly.