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The aim of this publication is to outline changes that have been observed in Poland and to present the place of the Polish industry, including production, services and international trade, since the accession to the European Union. Rating highly the role of industry and proper conducting of a pro-growth policy in Poland and the European Union, one part of the study concerns the analysis of basic indicators of the Polish industry structure and the final part the realization of the Europe 2020 strategy. The analytical description in the publication was enriched with a wide set of tables, as well as a crosssectional collection of information on industry in Poland and on the European Union member states in rank order. The high dynamics observed in Poland resulted, among others, from an over double growth in the production of electrical equipment, computers, electronic and optical products as well as of metal products. The Strategy Europe 2020 is a socio-economic development programme for Poland and the EU growth. The goal of the Europe 2020 strategy is to create the economy - based on knowledge, low-emission policies promoting environmentally friendly technologies, making an efficient use of resources, and also aiming at social cohesion.

The reviewed book by T. Piketty has become one of the bestsellers in the world, and soon after its publication appeared reviews expressing both positive (and even enthusiastic) opinions, as well as highly critical ones. The latter, to some extent, refer to the theory of K. Marx, whose works are used by the author in the title of the book and partly in research. The subject of this publication is creation, division and possession of capital (wealth, wealth) in the modern world economy, especially highly developed countries. The key research task undertaken by Piketty concerns changes in the creation and distribution of wealth and income from the 18th century to the present, as well as lessons from this for the society and the present and future. In this context, an important place is occupied by the problem of economic and social inequalities arising in the global process of capital multiplication, which remains in the hands of a small group of its owners. The need to counteract unfavorable phenomena is growing, which leads to the development of a social state, a new type of public policy and the use of strong instruments to redistribute income.

The author describes and summarises the main theories relating to the specificity of the European Union structure as an internally complex organism which is being characterised by scientists as an international organisation as well as a confederation and a federation. Many researchers compare the process of the European Union formation to the nation-state formation, others compare the E.U. to the United States of America and many more indicate that the E.U. structure with its specific multi-level governance looks like a neo-medieval empire. What we can see in this empire is a network of overlapping systems of powers and areas of loyalty. The author points out that structurally the E.U. can be visualised as a model of multilevel governance and as such can be defined as a sui generis political system. So it is not analogous to the nation state but rather to a system of governance without a formal governing body. This notion is the result of a growing level of interdependence one can see in the international arena. In the second part of article, the author addresses the sovereignty issues which relate to the E.U. member states as well as the E.U. as a separate body. He reviews the theories which variously explain the process of European integration and its influence on internal policies within member states.

Ensuring internal security is one of the core objectives of European integration in the context of the establishment of an area of freedom, security and justice of the European Union (E.U.). The aim of the internal security policy of the E.U. is to support Member States with regard to the maintenance of law and order and the safeguarding of internal security. In the last 20 years in the area of internal security of the E.U. many important initiatives, political agendas and legal instruments at the E.U. level have arisen. This article aims to show the development of the internal security policy of the E.U., its most important guidelines and the challenges in the coming years.

The activity of international holding companies has become crucial for the European economy. In particular, attention should to paid to the tax-related issues, which arise out of the cross-border activity of holding companies. Increasingly, holding companies employ aggressive tax optimisation in their strategies. While the tax policies of individual E.U. Member States have turned out to be of little effectiveness, simultaneously, the lack of a common and harmonised tax policy designed to counteract tax optimisation has become a serious problem for the European Union. Therefore, the European Commission strives to develop a fiscal concept which will - on the one hand - allow to effectively combat international tax optimisation adopted by holding companies and - on the other hand - be integral with the internal tax systems of individual Member States.

The author addresses the social participation issue in the context of its significance to public policy in Poland. He examines the barriers limiting the expansion of participation. He notices them in the way a democracy functions ("failed democracy" according to Democracy Index), as well as in the way the dialogue has been organised (for example, two separate currents have been established - i.e. the social one and the civic one, which is quite unusual by Western European standards). He regards the politicians' perception of what a democracy is as a next barrier. As a result of that one can see lower standards of public sphere in place, antiquated public governance still in place, the underdevelopment of the legal framework for social dialogue and the low quality of policy-making. The author also describes the most important social phenomena relating to the functioning of the social and civic dialogue mechanisms. He analyses the sources of the current condition of the dialogue in terms of historical, structural as well as political factors.

In June 2015 the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy announced an amendment to the Labour Code, which is the reaction to the prevalence of employment based on-fixed term contracts in Poland. The scale of this phenomenon is not observed in any other E. U. state. New regulations may result in a decrease in the share of fixed-term employees of the total number of employees to be observed in the last few years. The Ministry intends to replace the limit of the renewals of a job contract concluded with an employee (currently the second renewal of the contract results in the conclusion of a permanent job contract) with another restriction: the total duration of such contracts should not exceed 33 months. The problem of an excessive share of flexible forms of employment has been widely analysed in the literature in recent years. It has become the subject of studies in the area of economy and sociology as well as an issue addressed by labour law experts. The expansion of flexibility has also received criticism from the trade unions, which influenced the mass media discourse - it is enough to mention the popularity of the term 'junk contracts' since 2012. The author attempts to comprehensively analyse the problem of flexible forms of employment, which include such issues as: the reasons for their popularity among employers, the scale of the use of particular forms based on the available statistical data, the construction of protective regulations of domestic labour law in the light of the requirements resulting from the E. U. and the I. L. O. membership, as well as social and economic consequences of the use of flexible forms of employment.

The text points out the need for significant changes in the disability policies, which result from the paradigm shift from medicine to social issues. Three theoretical approaches are presented and briefly discussed, which might be helpful when analyzing the public policy towards disability and eventually be used when reformulating it. First, the biographical approach and the trajectory of everyday life are presented. Then, the problem is discussed in the context of the social exclusion followed by the analysis of the public policies from the perspective of the expected failure. Finally the text presents the differences between social and public disability policies and points out the advantages of the approach typical for public policy-related sciences.

The main obstacles in the implementation of public policies emerge at the earlier stages of the agenda-setting and the formulation of goals due to institutional constraints. They comprise the ambiguities about the governing center and thus about the real actors of the public policy process. The government fully controls the legislation, although this results from a functional unity of the executive and the legislative powers rather than from formal regulations. The parliament gets deprived of its influence on public policy. The government, however, is not able to fulfill its functions, either. The evidence shows that the main actor in programming public policy is the administration, and the decision-taking process is dispersed among separate ministries without any real coordination and oversight. The law is an instrument of communicating decisions taken at the pre-legislative stage. The use of objective data and public consultations is occasional, although they could compensate for the declining role of the parliament. This makes the selection of proper policy instruments yet more difficult.

The creation of socio-economic policy is not, however, the main domain of the second chamber, especially in those systems, where the model of asymmetric bicameralism is implemented. The limitation of the process of creating economic policy is observable for example in the Czech Republic, where the Senate does not participate in passing of the budget act. Socio-economic policy of the state is not the main scope of interest of the Polish Senate either. The majority of legislative initiatives results in the creation of a new law and it does not raise the subject of socio-economic state policy directly. There are to be found, however, some initiatives that propose changes in the tax system, labour law, social care law or in the area of pensions and annuities. Owing to the legislative initiatives of the Senate accounting chambers and employers' associations were created. While analyzing the role of the Senate in socio-economic state policy the actions of Senate committees, especially of the Budget and Public Finance Committee, the National Economy Committee, the Family and Social Policy Committee, the Agriculture and Rural Development Committee are worth emphasizing. Those committees put forward amendments to the budget act, review the laws passed by the Sejm or international agreements concerning socio-economic policy. Some of the effects of the Polish Senate's committee work is, among many, proposing by the Budget and Public Finance Committee, on behalf of the Senate, a number of amendments to consequent budget acts. It should be stressed, however, that the Senate undermines its role in the field of socio-economic policy. It takes, so to say, additional measures to other activities. A lack of long-term and comprehensive programmes can be seen in those actions. The Senate uses the instruments of government, nevertheless, it does so in moderation.

Financial determinants related to the budgetary situation of territorial self-government units play the most important role among all the factors affecting the undertaking and conducting of investments by territorial units. Finances are a key element in functioning of territorial self-government units as well as the primary determinant of viability and success of any investment. The objective of this article is to present financial determinants associated with the budgetary situation of territorial self-government units in Poland and their effects on investment execution by these entities. Consequently, investment expenditure, own income, and budgetary result with particular attention to operating surplus have been characterized.

An important feature of the development processes in Mazovia is a deep polarization between Warsaw with its metropolitan area and the rest of the region. The capital (and surrounding municipalities) is a center for innovation in the country, but at the same time it leans more towards imitation of external solutions, rather than creation of original innovations. The situation in rural areas in the region is in this respect much worse. Public policy can stimulate innovative economy in these areas, although this is an extremely difficult task. The article presents recommendations on selected public policies, particularly enabling diversification of economic activities beyond agriculture which seems to be the most desirable direction of modernization changes.

At the beginning of Poland's post-socialist economic and political transformation, the then President of Poland and icon of Poland's struggle for democracy, Lech Wałęsa, declared, referring to Poland's economy, that we should build "a second Japan". The statement has since been ridiculed on a number of occasions, as Japan represented a great economic success, but nevertheless achieved in an entirely different historical, systemic and, most importantly, cultural environment. The Poles looked West at a narrow range of systemic arrangements and policies as the solutions to their post-socialist underdevelopment and never really considered other options.

Despite the relatively young population of Ireland a growth of the elderly can be observed in this country. Therefore, a vast number of research and studies on society ageing and socio-economic variables characteristic for this part of society as well as on its needs are conducted. It is related to the requirement of designing and implementing certain schemes in the public policy. It even enforces some specific actions on the government, inter alia in the pension system. The main aim of the paper, therefore, is a presentation of the most important data referring to Ireland's pension system as well as the incomes of people aged 65 and over. Bearing this goal in mind the study shows some demographic data, the elements of Irish pension system and information about incomes of the elderly. Thus, the section referring to Ireland's population shows not only present and previous data related to the participation of the elderly in society, but it also presents the projections for this age group, taking into consideration the different scenarios of migration and fertility.. We use these variables to illustrate ageing as well as to show depth and seriousness of this process in the future. Whereas, in the section related to the pension system we draw our attention to the components of this system such as state pension, occupational pension or private pension. The part of the paper referring to incomes that elderly people receive in Ireland analyses their importance for this age group. In this section we discuss the sources of incomes, their level and distribution as well as variables affecting incomes such as education, employment sector and the number of working years.

Due to the social and economic costs the problem of climate change has recently become one of the factors which antagonizes or merges national political systems and their entities. The case of Norway as a leading European producer and exporter of oil and gas seems to deserve particular attention. Although the main political actors in the country, such as the Norwegian Labour Party (DnA), the Conservative Party of Norway (H), the Socialist Left Party (SV), the People's Christian Party (Kr.F), the Centre Party (S) and the Liberal Party (V) have quite similar ideas about the major objectives of the national climate policy, their opinions differ in operational matters. The position of the Progress Party (Fr.P) is an important exception to the approach towards the discussed issue. This article aims to analyse the programme assumptions about the climate policy and climate protection of all parliamentary groups and assess their practical implementation in the past decade.