Fiscal policy can be of a discretionary or rule-based nature. This article discuses selected examples of fiscal rules as well as presents the advantages and disadvantages of following them. The aim of the article is to solve dilemmas about the positive and negative consequences of strict regulations of contemporary fiscal policy. Therefore, a hypothesis is tested concerning whether the following of rules in macroeconomic policy is a more beneficial solution than carrying out a discretionary policy. The hypothesis was not clearly verified. On the one hand, it was stated that it is usually more beneficial to follow standard rules due to higher reliability for markets. On the other hand, that entails lower flexibility, which may be especially disadvantageous during a crisis.
The aim of the article is to show the issue connected with adjustments of the Polish, Hungarian and Czech economies to the euro area in the context of the nominal Maastricht convergence criteria (in the years 2004–2013 and, in some cases, also in the fi rst months of 2014). Takinginto account those criteria and legislation, the analysis shows that, among the above-mentioned countries, it is the Czech Republic that is closest to the euro zone, followed by Poland and Hungary. It is concluded, however, that none of those countries will probably be interested in replacing the national currency with the euro anytime soon.
"Soft power" is the ability to change someone else's values, ideas, interests. Successful use of "soft power" leads to a change in attitudes and behavior. "Soft power" can be seen as managing the mass consciousness by indirect means that do not encounter conscious resistance. "Soft power" resources belong to civil society networks. Following the British referendum on June 23, 2016, the EU's global power of influence diminished. Traditionally, the European Union is seen as a stable center of material wealth, high social status, social optimism and justice, spiritual and physical comfort. However, as a rule, they forget about the fact that there is no permanent dependence between subjective well-being and changes in economic conditions of life. Until now, European optimists are pushing European integration as the only effective answer to the challenges of globalization, while European pessimists have said that federal Europe would be too centralized, inflexible and wasteful. The European Union is not so much a generator of European peace, as its result. The EU has emerged as a unique conglomerate of democratic states. This is not a federation or collective bargaining agreement, and it is not a classic nation-state, and most importantly not an empire with a metropolis at its center. It is an experimental form of peace-based integration as a norm. Instead, the empire is usually a centralized militarized state, the possession of which is a conglomerate of national territories of subjugated peoples. The EU is a social institution that implements collective action based on democratic approval and consent to their adoption. Despite governance weaknesses, the EU remains an important layer of capital regulation in the face of three global crises: the financial, environmental and security crises
At its 30th anniversary, the Maastricht Treaty remains a milestone in the history and practice of the European Union. This referring to the adhesion process, since the set of conditions that a country must accomplish have been settled and derived by the treaty, but also for the fact that now, after 20 years of entering in force, the Euro, the Union currency, has performed and faced different consecutive challenges, thus becoming observable concerning it effects and role, and as a consequence, its theoretical and practical validity. But there is yet a vast area, in the center of Europe, that is still dragging on its calvary of adhesion, that of the Western Balkans. At this point, considering the processes that the countries of this area have been going through, by pursuing the adhesion path, the analysis of the dominating factors that have determined the trajectory of their EU membership, becomes essential. The paper questions and analyses the validity of the Maastricht Treaty and subsequent criteria for the adhesion of the Western Balkan countries, as well as highlights on the ‘ad-hoc’ criteria and evaluations often applied during the process and their consequences in terms of the attitudes of the Balkan populations and their determination toward the EU and the Western Balkans adhesion.
The first part of this paper reviews the institutional arrangements in pre-crisis euro zone. EMU is unique among modern states in that it combines a centralised monetary policy with decentralised responsibility for most economic policies. The second part contains some evidence of euro crisis. By the time of the eruption of the financial crisis in 2008 some euro area Member States had accumulated large private and public debts, losses in competitiveness, and macroeconomic imbalances. The third part reviews new economic governance in euro zone. The main conclusion is that new rules are mostly path depended.
Traktat z Maastricht stworzył II filar Unii Europejskiej – Wspólną Politykę Zagraniczną i Bezpieczeństwa, która powstała w celu poprawieniu współpracy w zakresie polityki zagranicznej, współpracy, która istniała nieformalnie od 1970 roku. Mimo to ostatnio (na przykład w odniesieniu do kryzysu libijskiego) europejskie państwa nie znalazły wspólnego głosu, którego od nich oczekiwano. Przedmiotem artykułu jest pytanie o przyczyny trudności w udoskonalaniu tej polityki. Artykuł bada możliwość wynikania różnic w polityce zagranicznej z długiego okresu trwania tych elementów w mentalności zbiorowej.
EN
The Maastricht Treaty includes as the “second pillar” of the European Union a Common Foreign and Security Policy that is designed to improve co-operation in foreign policy, co-operation which has existed informally since 1970. However in recent times (for example, the Libyan crisis), the European nations have not found the single voice that has been expected of them. The article asks for the reasons for the difficulty in improving this policy. As hypothesis a linkage to culture is established, understood as values and attitudes but also memories and remembrances. The article explores the possibility that the differences in the foreign policy are linked with the long life of these elements in the collective mentality.
Projekt Konstytucji dla Europy Wojciecha Bogumiła Jastrzębowskiego stanowi wizję idealnego europejskiego ładu społecznego, którego fundament stanowić ma między innymi powszechne prawo obywatela do wolności i niezależności, do różnorodności i własnej indywidualnej tożsamości, a także prawo do życia w pokoju. Nad wyraz widoczny jest zatem szereg zbieżności, które istnieją pomiędzy przymierzem narodów postulowanym przez Jastrzębowskiego a późniejszymi formami zespolenia, funkcjonującymi i nadal rozwijanymi we współczesnej Europie. Warto zatem przedstawić kilka uwag na temat istniejących podobieństw, ale też i istotnych różnic, między monarchistyczną wizją europejskiego przymierza narodów, przedstawioną przez autora Konstytucji dla Europy, a współczesną realizacją idei jedności kontynentu. Celem niniejszego artykułu jest analiza i charakterystyka istniejących podobieństw, jak również najistotniejszych różnic, między monarchistyczną wizją europejskiego przymierza narodów, przedstawioną przez autora Konstytucji dla Europy, a współczesną realizacją idei jedności kontynentu.
EN
Wojciech Bogumił Jastrzębowski’s draft of a Constitution for Europe is a vision of an ideal European social order, whose foundation is to be found, inter alia, in the citizen’s universal right to freedom and independence, to diversity and individual identity, as well as the right to live in peace. It is thus highly apparent that a number of parallels exist between the alliance of nations postulated by Jastrzębowski and later forms of integration existing and still being developed in contemporary Europe. The aim of this article is to analyse and characterize the existing similarities, and also the most significant differences, between the monarchist vision of the European alliance of nations, as presented by the author of the Constitution for Europe, and the contemporary realisation of the idea of the unity of the continent.
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