**4. Discussion**

It is important to note that motivation to use correlations for the criteria prioritisation is based on the reasoning that the criteria of the two groups *xi* and *yj* describe the same phenomenon—the well-being of the population in the broad sense. Criteria prioritisation procedure consider correlations of *xi* with *yj* (not correlations in internal groups for *xi* and *yj*). Ideally, values of *xi* must not be correlated with each other as well as values of *yj*. However, the correlation between the criteria of different groups may be. If this assumption were completely wrong, WEBIRA would probably fail to balance the weight of the criteria and the final rating would be not logical. However, the final rating of alternatives is consistent with the results of cluster analysis. So, there is no reason to assert that priorities have been wrongly identified.

The question is: Can intergroup correlations be spurious? A spurious correlation can often be created by an antecedent which impacts both variables. In the current situation we do not have such causal relationships; our belief is that this negates the hypothesis of false correlations. Furthermore, security indicators correlation with national health indicators is ascertained in the literature [38].

The resulting weighted sum values *S<sup>X</sup>* and *S<sup>Y</sup>* are strongly correlated (*r* = 0.861) and the alternative for the Formula (7) may be the maximum of the correlation coefficient. There may be other alternatives to the Formula (7). Benchmarking of methods for setting priorities (6) is an interesting task looking forward to further research. To approve the use of correlations for setting the relative importance of the evaluation criteria other well-known objective methods, for example, the entropy method, would be applied. A sensitivity analysis of weights would be performed in order to demonstrate the stability of the results. This is also planned by the authors in their further research.

Security is not only a mighty driver of economic activity worldwide but also has a strong influence on public social welfare. Therefore, it is one of the most significant topics of discussion in the global society today [1]. On the other hand, the relevant problem is to assess the feasibility of identifying country threats in the economic, social and other spheres of society, based on the correlation and consistency of definitions of security and socioeconomic indicators according to their content and logical relationship [39]. Human development indicators are integrated part of economic, social and other spheres of public life and are related to the level of internal security of the countries. These are

key elements in assessing the economic, social and internal security aspects of countries. Investigation shows that indicators of WISPI and HDI are closely related and their correlation is reasonable.

This should be considered in performing socioeconomic reforms in the EU. However, when the countries were categorised into more and less developed ones, based on the Human Development Index, they have different effects on their police systems [40]. Ranking the countries based on both indices has revealed the differences between the countries in this respect. It allows the authors to conclude that political strategies in the EU countries differ considerably. Political strategies in the EU member states can be focused on the most significant (weighty) indicators of HDI and WISPI, described in this study. It shows that there is no balance in the development strategies of these countries. According to our insight, this is a preliminary distribution that helps to understand the prevailing trends in the countries (HDI dominates in one group of countries, WISPI dominates in another group of countries and WISPI and HDI harmonise in a third group of countries). This allows us to distinguish countries by their distance from harmonious development according to HDI and WISPI. This question requires further and deeper research and validation.

There are various multiple criteria decision-making techniques available for the analysis of the alternatives based on a set of criteria. They often yield different ranking results of the alternatives. The question arises, which approach is most suitable? It is clear that it depends on the investigated problem and the goals to be achieved. In this research, the problem of ranking the countries by using not only Human Development, but also the criteria describing Internal Security and Police has been solved applying WEBIRA method. The MCDM method WEBIRA meets the objective pursued because it allows the researchers to carry out the weight balancing procedure by solving the optimisation problem and simultaneously determining the weights of the criteria of both groups. Then, the ranking procedure has been performed by applying the SAW method. Brute force (i.e., the total reselection) algorithm implementation was chosen for this particular task. However, the optimisation task could be solved by using other heuristic techniques.
