Search results

THE BOOK AS AN OBJECT OF CULTURAL VALUE IN THE EUROPEAN UNIONBooks play a significant role in the preservation of cultural diversity within the European Union. Because of the binary character of the book as a cultural artifact, as well as an object of commerce, books are encompassed by special mechanisms of support and protection within the borders of the European Union. Their cultural value may also justify the unique treatment of books in the application of some of the provisions of the Treaties, e.g. in the areas of taxation, copyrights and competition law. Due to the EU legislation in the fields of VAT tax as well as copyrights, the Member States are able to highlight the valuable contribution of books concerning preservation, dissemination and development of national cultures. However, in the era of digital revolution, some of presented provisions are insufficient. Reduced rate of VAT tax cannot be applied to e-books, which were recognized by the Court of Justice of the European Union as electronically supplied services. Moreover, there is still lack of announced EU provisions on fixed book price. As a result, the Member States sharing the same language, are not able to establish joint fixed book price without breaking the European Union law.

The article is preliminary and includes proposals to include the legal position of the CatholicChurch from the perspective of Polish administrative law. Discourse were the status of the CatholicChurch in Poland from the perspective of its possible qualification as a self-religious or socialorganization performing tasks in the field of public administration. It was assumed that after all thisis a religious organization under public law. They were treated with the Catholic Church in Poland,as an entity of public administration that performs these tasks on the principle of decentralization,and not as a so-called. the administrative performing so. function commissioned. Public tasksCatholic Church does on its own behalf and on their own responsibility, not on behalf of and forthe benefit of the state. Is, therefore, a corporation governed by public law with special status.

POSITION OF A FOUNDATION IN THE FIELD OF ITS THERAPETIC ACTIVITYThe Law on therapeutic activity provides the changes concerning both private and public sector of medical services. Those changes are relevant also for the position of foundations as non-government actors active on widely understood medical market. The foundations pursue an activity within the meaning of Article 3 of the Law on therapeutic activity, consisting in providing the therapeutic services or promoting the health or performing didactic or research tasks connected with providing therapeutic services — which creates the conditions to realize statutory tasks protection and promotion of health.

Bilateral relations between Poland and Latin American countries have been largely determined by the history At the time when the countries of that region fought for their independence, Poland did not exist as a sovereign state and was erased from the political map of Europe for many years. Therefore, the establishment of diplomatic or commercial relations with the states of the Latin American region was not possible. However, the countries of Latin America, which in the last century began an intense process of political and economic changes, have rapidly gained recognition in international relations, which as a result influenced their relations with the rest of the world. The active policy towards the Latin American region, conducted, among the others by the European Union, including countries neighbouring Poland, as well as the growing political and economic needs of our country, pose a number of new challenges to the Latin American policy of Poland. The research area of this paper focuses on Poland's foreign policy towards some specified Latin American and Caribbean countries in the post-Cold War period from 1989/1990 to the end of 2016 (regarding also some relevant topics in the first half of 2017). The main part of the work focuses on the analysis of Poland's foreign policy in relation to several Latin American countries: Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Colombia and Venezuela. The choice of the countries was aimed at presenting Poland's relations with the main partners of our country in Latin America. In order to show the whole spectrum of Poland's foreign policy towards some specified Latin American countries, its character was described in a multidimensional manner in four different and complementary dimensions: political, economic, cultural and scientific. The main research objective of this paper has been to present the essence of Poland's foreign policy towards Latin American countries in the post-Cold War period, at a political, economic, cultural and scientific level, taking into account the key aspects of relations from previous years, as well as presenting trends and elements of continuity and change shaping policy of the Third Republic of Poland towards the countries of the Latin American region. The author's aim was to present the main dilemmas and problems of the Latin American policy of Poland, as well as potential areas and reasons for intensifying cooperation on various levels with the countries of the region, in view of the challenges facing Latin American policy of Poland in the second decade of the 21st century.