Where Have the Guardians Gone? Law Enforcement and the Politics of Supranational Forbearance in the European Union

Why would a supranational law enforcer suddenly refrain from wielding its powers? We theorize the supranational politics of forbearance– the deliberate under-enforcement of the law– and distinguish them from domestic forbearance. We explain why an exemplary supranational enforcer– the European Commission– became reluctant to launch infringements against European Union member states. While the Commission’s legislative role as “engine of integration” has been controversial, its enforcement role as “guardian of the Treaties” has been viewed as less contentious. Yet after 2004, infringements launched by the Commission plummeted. Triangulating between infringement statistics and elite interviews, we trace how the Commission grew alarmed that aggressive enforcement was jeopardizing intergovernmental support for its policy proposals. By embracing dialogue with governments over robust enforcement, the Commission sacrificed its role as guardian of the Treaties to safeguard its role as engine of integration. Our analysis holds broader implications for the study of forbearance in international organizations.

Digitalization as a Trend of Modern Development of the World Economy

Transformation of economies with the application of information and communication technologies not only strengthens the competitiveness of countries in the international market, but also helps optimize and improve business processes in the international business environment. The purpose of the academic paper is to study the impact of digitalization on the development of the world economy on the example of the economies of the European Union member states. The following methods have been used, namely: analysis, description, generalization, induction, deduction, tabular representation, graphical representation, correlation analysis, systematization and grouping. Results: The positions of the European Union member states that are actively implementing the Digital Single Market strategy have been analyzed. It has been established that according to The Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI), Finland, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands and Malta have been among the top 5 leaders with the highest level of digitalization of the economy in 2020. Based on the study of The IMD World Digital Competitiveness Ranking, it has been found that the European Union member states, which are among the top 10 leading countries, such as: Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands, have a high level of ability and readiness to research and implement digital technologies in order to achieve economic transformation and business transformation. The results of the correlation analysis have revealed the interrelationship between the values of Digital single market – promoting e-commerce for individuals and Enterprises that have provided training to develop / upgrade ICT skills of their personnel (%). It has been proved that Sweden, Malta and Estonia show a very high positive correlation, which indicates that these countries are actively implementing digital technologies in the development of economic processes.

Unification of gift and inheritance taxes and the protection of taxpayers – the inheritors and recipients of donations

Gift and inheritance tax in the European Union Member States is calculated and charged in numerous ways. In the majority of countries of the European Economic Community it constitutes a separate tax. In several countries it is not charged at all or is part of the income tax. Despite the attempts made by the European Commission to unify the legislation of the Member States in this regard, there has been no success. The article presents the above-mentioned attempts of the European Commission, their results and consequences. It identifies the methods of avoiding a double or even triple taxation on cross-border inheritances or donations. This is of crucial significance also to the Polish citizens who demonstrate higher and higher investment activity in the countries of the European Economic Community and third countries.

DO THE PROVISIONS REGULATING THE TERMS OF EMPLOYMENT OF POSTED WORKERS, AS MANDATORY PROVISIONS, ENSURE THE PROTECTION OF THE EMPLOYEE?

All employment relationships, including strictly employment relationships, may be related to the legal areas of two or more countries, which raises the question of the law applicable to a specific legal relationship. The Rome I Regulation has a key importance in determining the applicable law to which the employment relationship is to be subjected. In this respect, the decree of Art. 8 of the Regulation has a fundamental importance, which was analyzed in the first part of this publication. However, the mechanism according to which the lex labori will be corrected by the provisions forcing their application, the issues of which are presented later in the publication, should be distinguished from the scheme presented in the above-mentioned regulation. According to the EU legislator, one of the matters of employment relationships regulated by such provisions is the standardization of the terms and conditions of employment of employees posted to perform work in the territory of a European Union Member State. Answers to the question whether it is appropriate to assign a nature of the rules enforcing its application provisions to this regulation (concerning the terms and conditions of employment of posted workers) has been made at the end of this publication.

Cluster Analysis of Regional Competitiveness in the European Union and the Role of ICT

This article represents an empirical research on the competitiveness of the European Union Member Countries. The main objective is to analyze the level of competitiveness of these countries, focusing on the situation of the new non-Eurozone member countries. At the same time, we want to identify the main measures to stimulate competitiveness. The research methodology we applied is based on critical comparative analysis, statistical data and econometric analysis. The results showed that there are large gaps in competitiveness between the new EU Member Countries that are not part of the Eurozone and the EU-28 average, and even larger compared to the performers Netherlands and Germany, gaps that in the current conditions will be very difficult to be reduced. Research has also shown that ICT adoption do not have a significant impact on the competitiveness indicator, and the main factors influencing this indicator are innovation capability, financial system, institutions, business dynamism, product market and skills. Thus, we believe that for a sustainable growth of competitiveness and for meeting the economic objectives, developing countries must adopt concrete measures to develop these fundamental pillars of competitiveness.

THE IMPLICATION OF DEMOGRAPHICS ON THE ROMANIAN PENSION SYSTEM

This paper aims to analyse the influence of the demographical factors on the short-term sustainability of the pension system from Romania. The data used for econometric modelling consisted of panel data for the period 2009-2019 for 8 European Union member states, together with time series data for autoregressive modelling. The following econometrical models were used: random-effects GLS regression and Box-Jenkins (ARIMA). The results emphasize an increasing demographical pressure on the Romanian pension system and the need of pension system reform.

Governance Trends among New EU Member States: Is There Institutional Convergence?

The main objective of this paper is to explore the institutional convergence of Central and Eastern European Union member countries as a possible consequence of both the transfer of selected Western formal institutions to those countries and the adoption of acquis communautaire. This issue dates back to the beginning of the 1990s when the predominant expectation was that the successful formal institutions in Western countries would yield the same results in transition countries. In the meantime, mainly because of informal constraints, this has shown to be a misconception in most cases. The methodology used in the paper is twofold. First, by means of descriptive statistics, and using the varieties of capitalism approach, we show that, when analysing institutional quality using the Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI), there are two divergent groups of EU countries. The first group consists of Liberal, Nordic, and Continental countries, and the second consists of Mediterranean and CEE member states that are further divided into liberal and coordinated market economies. Second, based on the calculation of the σ- and unconditional β-convergence of governance trends in the period 1996–2019, we empirically confirm that there are also variations within the CEE countries as well as within the specific dimensions of governance.