The work discusses issues of the infrastructure, its instruments, and specifics of infrastructure in Polish and Slovak rural areas. The aim of this article is to analyze the level of technical infrastructure development in rural regions of the Małopolskie Voivodeship in Poland and the west part of Slovakia—Trnava self-governing region (Trnava region) as two regions with a similar position regarding regional competitiveness index. Following the topic, after identification of strengths and weaknesses of mentioned regions, the opportunities, and threats of sustainable development of infrastructure in rural areas have been analyzed using the SWOT method. The development of sustainable, reliable, and functional infrastructure does not only refer to the chosen regions of Poland and Slovakia but also other regions in the European Union. Sustainable infrastructure is a factor stimulating social and economic progress as one of the most important determinants of sustainable development and regional competitiveness. The authors notice a particular lack in the sustainable development of infrastructure in the field of water and sewerage management together with the supply of water. Therefore, this article tries to complete the gap in research focusing on the concept of a more systematic approach to technical infrastructure improvement in the context of sustainable development, and strategy of cooperation.

A concern for ensuring energy security is particularly important in the 2020s, a decade significantly marked by economic and political uncertainty: the coronavirus pandemic, the Russian-Ukrainian war, and inflation turning into stagflation in many markets. Additionally, the national and international climate policy promoting the acquisition of energy from non-renewable sources is only a part of the problem that forces a revision of the direction and degree of diversification of energy sources. States, bearing in mind the inevitability of change, in order to maintain energy security, should not only accurately read these phenomena but also effectively prevent them. One of the available solutions is to build a multi-energy concern to ensure energy independence through diversified production and distribution of electricity and non-renewable fuels. To this end, a large international entity centred around the PKN Orlen group has existed in Poland for several years. The construction of this holding is based on M&A transactions, as effective mechanisms for long-term management, and focused around complementary, in terms of economic activity, market entities—Energa, Lotos and PGNiG. This article focuses on the assessment of the phenomenon of capital concentration in M&A transactions by PKN Orlen, with particular emphasis on the changes in the shaping of energy security in the near future and also on the basis of the directions resulting from government guidelines and policies.

Prace Naukowe Uniwersytetu Ekonomicznego we Wrocławiu = Research Papers of Wrocław University of Economics; 2019; vol. 63, nr 11, s. 155-164

Circular bioeconomy constitutes one of the key developmental strategies of the European Union. Understanding the conditions for the advancement thereof is crucial for successfully implementing these principles in daily production and consumption. The aim of this study was to identify the key drivers within bioeconomy indicators. The research was conducted based on bioeconomy indicators classified by the European Commission. Data were obtained from Eurostat and FAOSTAT, describing phenomena recognised as bioeconomy indicators for the period from 2012 to 2021. The analysis covered selected EU countries – member states that joined the community before 2004. The data underwent exploratory factor analysis, which identified five groups of indicators linked to underlying factors. These factors were identified as: Innovation, Institutional Conditions: Implementation of the Circular Economy Strategy, Institutional Conditions: Implementation of Sustainable Development Policies, Resource Efficiency, and Support and Expansion of Forested Areas. The analysis also identified certain risks associated with the development of bioeconomy, as measured by the indicators defined by the European Commission. The mentioned risks relate to a decline in food purchasing power and a decrease in biodiversity.

Historically, the development of new technologies has led to higher increase in productivity in Europe and the US compared to the rest of the world. This resulted in economic asymmetry in the global economy, which ultimately led to the geopolitical domination of Europe and the USA over Africa and Asia (Findlay, O'Rourke, 2007, p. 364). With the adoption of the Lisbon Treaty, the European Union has taken a step towards playing a significant role in trade, environment and social issues (Van Langenhove & Marchesi, 2009; Rudloff & Laurer, 2017). The aim of this work is to present the main challenges and changes taking place in transatlantic relations between the EU and the USA in the second and third decades of the 21st century. To achieve this goal, the descriptive method was applied. The reforms carried out by the EU allowed it to act in the spectrum of international affairs. The conflict between Russia and Ukraine (in 2014 and 2022) showed that the EU is increasingly resorting to sanctions and conditionality instruments to promote its interests. In addition, the EU aims to create a common army. Despite the fact that these changes contribute to the increase of the EU's competitiveness in the world, US relations between the EU are extremely durable, and the transatlantic community is repairing mutual relations relatively quickly. Meanwhile, the EU's relations with China, the largest trading partner in 2021 (Eurostat, 2022), are confrontational. Despite improvement in transatlantic relations, the earlier lack of communication led to a lack of confidence in the US on the part of Europeans. Relations between the US and the EU in the third decade of the 21st century remain tense – it is worth mentioning the AUKUS defense pact (agreement between Australia, Great Britain and the United States) on the exchange of defense technologies in this respect (Borges de Castro and Ricardo, 2021; Morcos 2021 ). It resulted in deterioration of relations between Paris and the US to such an extent that they were close to breaking. At the same time, at the beginning of the third decade of the 21st century, transatlantic relations sought stabilization. President Biden's administration has reaffirmed its commitment to alliances with European countries. In addition, the US returned to the Paris Agreement (United States Department of State, 2021) and rejoined the World Health Organization (WHO) (Keaten, 2021).

This article analyzes the phenomenon of deconsumption, which is relatively new and insufficiently researched or defined. Based on a review of the literature on the subject, it was found that there was little interest in deconsumption compared with sustainable consumption. Moreover, the number of scientific publications was negligible as the concept of deconsumption was rarely studied as a phenomenon. In addition, it should be noted that deconsumption can play a role in sustainable development and care for the environment and natural resources. Our study on this phenomenon sought to determine whether the phenomenon has spread to a noticeable degree, despite the deconsumption trend, which is important for its effective popularization in societies. Therefore, the aim of this study was to analyze whether the deconsumption phenomenon was reflected in macroeconomic data on consumption in selected European Union countries prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis of macroeconomic data on per capita consumption in the years 2000–2019 did not reveal a clear phenomenon of deconsumption; however, changes in the consumption structure were identified. In some countries, consumption fluctuated or decreased in certain sectors, suggesting the possible emergence of deconsumption. The computation method used in this study was fuzzy c-means clustering (FCM).