Environmental consequences of economic complexities in the EU amidst a booming tourism industry: Accounting for the role of brexit and other crisis events

The European Union (EU) is one of the strongest, but most complex unions in world with a competitive tourism industry. aim this study, therefore, to account for economic complexity index (ECI), Brexit and other crisis episodes growth-energy-emissions nexus. Theoretically, traditional Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) model assessed by adopting One-step System Generalized Method Moment (Sys GMM) on data 26 EU member states over period from 1995 2018. For first time, an EU-macro regional analysis conducted without UK. Empirical results reveal that increase tourism, real GDP per capita, energy use across four macro regions leads carbon emission. In some regions, it was observed ECI, Brexit, Greece bailout have no significant impact This suggests international travel, economy, financial do not accelerate environmental such regions. However, where factors are statistically significant, both heighten emissions. Particularly, when UK excluded, reduce emissions, respectively. EKC hypothesis, however, holds either scenario. Based these empirical findings, vital policy directions suggested post-Brexit EU-UK relations.