Around the Bloc: Moscow Pushes Back in Wake of ‘Panama Papers’ Leak
Putin spokesman accuses CIA, State Department of organizing massive leak of company documents.
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Putin spokesman accuses CIA, State Department of organizing massive leak of company documents.
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Individual, community and public administration institutions responsible for disaster management usually facing various types of threats: natural, technological and willful. Disasters occur due to evidence of threats an their consequences can destroy and damage property, cause cultural, social, economic and psychological effects on society, injure or kill humans, disrupt community activities in different ways. The competent authorities in every phases of the disaster management cycle use certain universally recognized measures in order to reduce the potential impact of disasters, to prepare for responding and to recover after disaster. The effectiveness of application of such measures is determined by one of the existing and widely known in the world approach – community based disaster management. Unfortunately, its application remains an open question how far authorities responsible for disaster management can involve communities into the disaster management cycle activities? Authors of the article on the basis of „public participation levels” classification proposed by Sher r y R. Arnstein (1969) and taking into account restrictions for publicity of existing information on different hazards and management phases provide the theoretical model for community involvement into the disaster management cycle activities.
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Worried about influence of Russia and other states on the local media scene, the Czech government has announced plans to set up a special team to pay closer attention.
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Now a Ukrainian citizen, the ex-president says the decision exposes the authorities as ‘scared and failed.’
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The aim of this paper is to find an answer to the question: is the voivodeship status a factor which influences economic growth of the Polish cities? The author of the article intends to check the role of the status taking into account three assumptions. Firstly, the amount of financial support which is transferred from regional public institutions to the voivodeship cities may be bigger than transfers to the province capitals. Secondly, the voivodeship capitals, due to the presence of the regional public institutions, may be more attractive for entrepreneurs than the province capitals. Thirdly, the voivodeship capitals are treated as the most important urban centers in various national strategies, and their formal position may lead to the greater support from the state. The author intends to verify these assumptions using selected indicators of economic growth which show the socio-economic condition of two voivodeship capitals (Opole, Zielona Gora) and two province capitals (Kalisz, Legnica). The results of the analysis suggest that the voviodeship capitals are more attractive for business but the administrative status of these cities does not affect the amount of financial support received from regional and national public institutions.
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Police models are designed to improve safety in society. Although Estonia has not deliberately used any (combination of) police models for developing its policies of safety and its police reforms since the country regained independence, its safety has improved considerably during the last couple of decades. The scholarly discussions about police models are overwhelmingly about the possible effects of different models on safety management and about their application to particular countries. However, countries like Estonia with no consistent conceptions of police have received little attention in academic literature. We aim to fill this gap by analysing the developments of the Estonian police in its philosophical, strategic, tactical and organisational dimensions over the period between 1991 and 2013. The analysed materials include the official police development plans, legislation, statutes, training programs and statistics about the police. Our analysis shows that although safety in Estonia has improved considerably, developments of the Estonian police are characterised by internal discrepancies and inconsistencies. In view of this, we put forth some hypotheses for further studies regarding policy development in a situation where policy is not explicitly stated or where organisational reforms are seen not as “simple” or “complex” problems, but as “wicked” problems.
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This article discusses the development of regional policies in two countries, Latvia and Norway. The aim is to present how these policies have evolved and can be understood with the application of complexity theory as a common theoretical framework for analysis. Even though Latvia and Norway have quite different experiences in regional development policy, both have tried to react to modern challenges of globalization and demographic changes by using general theories and concepts of economic and social development. Differences and similarities between the two countries are high-lighted by a review of studies from Latvia and Norway that describes the variety of policies that can be applied for regional development.Regional policy in both countries has coalesced around support for local initiative and entrepreneurship.
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Since 2004, the UK has enjoyed a decade of experience in managing migration from EU8 countries. This time around, how well founded are the fears that 2014 will see another ‘flood’ of migrants, on par with levels experienced in 2004? This essay argues that EU2 migration, from Romania and Bulgaria, will not be a repeat of 2004. To begin, this paper will examine the reasons why there was a twenty-fold discrepancy between official estimates of expected migrants following the 2004 enlargement. Then, by using Poland as a case study of typical migration flows after the 2004 migration period, this paper will show that— contrary to predictions based on standard migration theory— mass migration outflows in 2004 is not a good predictor of events to come in 2014. Among other factors, given that those who wanted to migrate to the UK from Romania and Bulgaria already have migrated pre-accession and more countries opened their labour markets in 2014 than they did in 2004, the UK is not likely to see a mass influx of Romanian and Bulgarian migrants as it did with those of Polish origin in 2004. However, like Polish migration, Romanian and Bulgarian migration will tend to be more circular and ‘fluid’.
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Artykuł jest podsumowaniem analizy dotyczącej wsparcia sektora ekonomii społecznej w ramach Programu Operacyjnego Kapitał Ludzki na lata 2007-2013 (Poddziałanie 7.2.2 Wsparcie ekonomii społecznej). Analiza została przeprowadzona na czterech poziomach: I – strategicznym: Program Operacyjny Kapitał Ludzki, II – strategiczno wdrożeniowym: Szczegółowy Opis Priorytetów PO KL; System Realizacji PO KL, III – wdrożeniowym: Plany Działań, IV – projektowym: Dokumentacja konkursowa, projekty. W opracowaniu opisano warunki dotyczące wsparcia ekonomii społecznej, które stworzono w ramach PO KL na etapie programowania poprzez zapisy PO KL oraz Szczegółowego Opisu Priorytetów PO KL. Analiza dotyczy także procesu implementacji programu w zakresie planów działania, dokumentacji konkursowych, kryteriów wyboru, a także przykładowych projektów. Autor wskazuje, że dotychczas wydatkowane środki pozwoliły na zrealizowanie szeregu indywidualnych projektów, jednak nie przyczyniły się do stworzenia funkcjonalnego systemu wsparcia ekonomii społecznej. Podkreśla także zasadność – z punktu widzenia efektywności wydatkowania środków publicznych – zbudowania, wdrożenia i wypromowania takiego systemu wsparcia ekonomii społecznej, który na terenie całego kraju pozwoli na korzystanie ze zbliżonego katalogu usług przy zachowaniu minimalnych standardów.
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This paper explores how digital transformation has changed the way internal audit and internal management controls are conducted in public institutions. From traditional audit methods to new technology-based methods, mainly driven by the development of artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain technologies, they greatly improve the depth of analysis and reduce the need for manual work. This aspect allows the automation of everyday tasks as well as the most complex ones, where large data series are analysed, audits become more transparent and efficient. The purpose of the research is to evaluate how prepared the professionals from public institutions are to move from manual to digital work, as well as to identify the main challenges encountered in the implementation of these technologies. The objectives consist of evaluating the progress of the transition to digital work in public institutions in Romania and identifying the obstacles to a successful adoption. The methodology includes reviewing the specialised literature and conducting quantitative surveys of staff in audited public institutions. Based on these ideas, the paper presentation attempts to understand the advantages and challenges to digital transformation that the public audit may face. Finally, the digital transformation represented an important and helpful aspect in the internal audit, but it is necessary to overcome the challenges to obtain these benefits in public institutions. The paper emphasises useful aspects of the use of digital technologies in public audit: improving audit capabilities and addressing the challenges of applying new technologies to existing systems.
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The article aims to analyse the public procurements in Romanian public sector hospitals in the pandemic year 2021, with the aim of identifying and analysing their particularities compared to the contracts concluded under normal conditions. The information used was extracted from the open data portal data.gov.ro and was processed with SPSS to identify the particularities that appeared in the case of public procurements carried out during the health crisis generated by the COVID-19 pandemic in the Romanian public sector, in order to identify possible solutions to be considered in the future, in the event of similar crises occurring in the future. Also, the article aims to analyse the possible correlations between various variables that were the basis for the awarding of public procurement contracts made by public hospitals in 2021.
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The digitalisation of proceedings before the registry courts and the accompanying digitalisationof the registry files kept within the Polish National Court Register (“NCR”) has revealed the inad-equate level of protection of processed personal data. There is “redundant” personal data availablewithin the public register, the processing of which is not justified by any legal basis.The law does not provide effective and adequate measures implementing the right to protec-tion of personal data processed in the NCR system. Courts, being the controllers of the personaldata processed within the digitalised NCR, are excluded from the supervision exercised by thepublic administration body appointed for this purpose – the President of the Personal Data Pro-tection Office. The provisions of the Act on the common courts system introduce separate com-plaint proceedings and supervisory authorities in this respect. However, these solutions should beassessed critically, as they do not ensure effective protection.
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On January 1, 2024, the long-awaited changes to the Road Traffic Law came into force, imposingadministrative fines on vehicle owners (former owners) for failure to notify about their purchaseor sale. The penalty for failure to notify about the purchase of a vehicle has been replaced in theabovementioned regulations with a penalty for failure to register it. The penalty rates have alsochanged, and the obligation for co-owners to bear the penalty jointly and severally has been intro-duced. The legislator has also excluded the possibility of applying general provisions on penaltiesfrom Chapter IVA of the Polish Code of Administrative Procedure, including the possibility ofwaiving the imposition of a penalty. Although some of the changes should be assessed positively,some errors were highlighted in this article.
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The article concerns the possible scope of application of the provisions of the Real PropertyManagement Act to update the annual fee for the perpetual usufruct of real property included in the Agricultural Property Stock of the Polish State Treasury. The considerations undertaken con-cern, for instance, the scope of the reference expressed in Article 17b(2a) of the Act on the man-agement of the agricultural real property of the Polish State Treasury, the admissibility of the ap-plication of Article 77 of the Real Property Management Act and its significance for perpetualusufructuaries.
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The subject of the analysis is the provisions of the Railway Transport Act concerning the use ofpassenger stations by railway undertakings and the making available of passenger stations to car-riers by their operators. These provisions have given rise to doubts, in particular about determin-ing which areas of passenger stations remain available to the carrier under rules appropriate toa service facility and whether the mere fact that the carrier’s trains stop at a given station obligesthe carrier to conclude a contract with the station operator for access to the facility. In addition,the nature of the amendment made to the Act in this regard came into force on April 17, 2020,which has been divergently assessed in the case law as either a normative change or merely a clar-ification. The analysis furthermore touches upon the issue of the facility access agreement, which,according to the provisions of the Act, should be concluded between the operator and the carrier,and the possible grounds for the operator to demand fees for access to the facility in a situationwhere such an agreement has not been concluded.
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The article presents the issue of information security incident management in public administration. The goal of security incident management is to minimize the negative impact of incidents and ensure the continuity of the organization's operations. It is critical to know what the threats are, including the number and types of incidents reported. The article outlines key incident management and legal issues related to the topic of security incidents and the work of computer incident response teams. Examples of incidents that took place recently in public administration units in Poland were also presented. This was followed by an analysis of statistical data on reported incidents in Poland in the years 2020-2022, and the results were compared with the number of incidents reported in selected European Union countries. The results of the study show that the dominant type of incidents is fraud (mainly phishing), and public administration is one of the main targets of cybercriminals' attacks. Difficulties in conducting such comparative analysis have also been demonstrated.
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The article is devoted to the legal issue arising from the transformation of internal security bodieswithin the structure of public administration, and consisting in the method of determining theimpact of such an event on the service relationship of officers employed in those structures(the so-called uniformed services). The analysis covers the regulations governing the servicerelationship of officers of the State Protection Office, the Government Protection Bureau andCustoms Services in connection with the dissolution of those institutions and the establishmentof the Internal Security Agency, the Intelligence Agency, the State Protection Service, and theCustoms and Fiscal Service instead of the former. Theoretical and legal models are identifiedand substantive legal provisions are presented in order to assess those provisions in terms oftheir compliance with the relevant provisions of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland.
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This article is of a scientific and research nature, covering the role of the Polish Agency forAudit Oversight (Polska Agencja Nadzoru Audytowego – PANA) and common courts indisciplinary proceedings against statutory auditors. The research aims to determine whetherthe provisions of Directive 2006/43/EC and Regulation (EU) 537/2014 justify assigning theaforementioned Agency the status of an authority for proceedings concerning disciplinaryoffences committed while performing assurance or related services in compliance with nationalprofessional standards. The provisions of European Union law regarding the role of publicsupervision bodies of auditors and audit firms are analysed, and the results are compared withthe constitutional and systemic conditions for shaping the norms of disciplinary proceedings.Some de lege ferenda proposals regarding the regulation of disciplinary proceedings bodies inmatters concerning statutory auditors are put forward.
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This article addresses the legal issues arising from the transformation of internal security bodieswithin the structure of public administration, specifically focusing on how such events impactthe service relationship of officers employed in those structures (the so-called ‘uniformedservices’). The analysis covers regulations governing the service relationships of officers in theState Protection Office, Government Protection Bureau, and Customs Services in connection withthe dissolution of these institutions and the establishment of the Internal Security Agency, theIntelligence Agency, the State Protection Service, and the Customs and Fiscal Service. Theoreticaland legal models are identified, and substantive legal provisions are presented to assess theircompliance with the relevant provisions of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland.
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The purpose of this article is to identify the relationship between the wealth of Polish municipalities and the quality of life in municipalities and, on this basis, to formulate conclusions and recommendations for municipal management. Although the impact of the wealth of municipalities on quality of life seems quite obvious, on the basis of the review of the literature to date, such relationships are unlikely to have been the subject of detailed scientific analysis. The subject of this study was Polish urban-rural municipalities that are also district cities. The study measured the correlation between the financial situation of municipalities in three groups: the most affluent,, medium affluent, and least affluent and the quality of life, expressed on the basis of 78 detailed indicators of the Central Statistical Office. The study shows a strong correlation between the wealth of municipalities and the overall quality of life in municipalities and a statistically significant, differentiated, overall quality of life in the three groups of municipal wealth, as well as the different strength of the impact of municipal wealth on the identified four segments of quality of life: economic, social, environmental, and institutional-political.
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