With the establishment of global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030 by the United Nations and the global Agreement to the climate change at the Paris Conference of Parties (COP) ,circular economy (CE) is becoming more mainstreamed in the world development and a hot issue of academic research and policy studies,as well as the low-carbon economy. Over the last decade,due to the stimulation of the CE development in China,foreign countries especially the European countries, aiming to gain the high competitive power in the field of green economy,have greatly contributed to the theory studies,policy innovations and business practices of CE,which would further promote the development of theories and policies of CE in China in turn. This paper summarized and reviewed the progress and achievements of CE in the European countries in the field of CE in the past 10 years from three aspects. First, it is found that CE in the world development is entering the important third wave and involving multi-actors of government,special organizations and academic research institutions,which started its earliest idea in 1960s and had a big progress in the last twenty years. Second,the main achievement of theories and practices of CE in the European countries could be summarized as follows: The theory and practice of CE has a systematic and combining tendency,such as EMF have developed a integrated framework of CE with technical cycle and bio cycle. The CE strategy has embodied a transition from a end of pipe waste treatment to a proactive waste prevention,such as EU has set up an ambitious Circular Economy Package. CE concept has closely related to Business innovation and development towards 21th century, such as Accenture Strategy has identified five categories in which product service systems and platform-oriented sharing economy was becoming a new frontier of CE. As a conclusion,based on the findings in this study,building a comprehensive policy framework of CE and collaborating government,business,customers and scholars for CE implementation are suggested for the future development of CE in China and for the ultimate goal of absolutely decoupling social economic development with resource use and environmental impact.