In modern economies the insurance industry has been outlined as a specific sector focusing on technical reserves’ accumulation as well as their management, distribution and appreciation. Any insurance company’s technical reserves are defined as financial funds of its clients having been accumulated as a proportion of insurance premium and calculated on the basis of actuarial mathematics. Accumulation of technical reserves as well as forms and limits of their allocations have been subjects of specific legislations in particular European countries and observing the law has been under the control of supervisory authorities. The European Union Directives determine the minimum standards for the EU countries’ legislations on technical reserves though the countries are allowed to determine even more rigid rules of their own. The paper presents the comparison of national limits of technical reserves in the insurance services in the selected EU countries.

The analysis was conducted on chosen group of 126 agricultural farms in aspekt of utilization of financial support from European Union budget, allocated on investment in machines, infrastructure and technical equipment. Over 75% of selected farms Combie activity in the range of plant and animal production, one dealt with plant production and only two farms the animal production. The largest percentage of farmers used direct farming subsidies, 85% respondents used this kind of founds. Sapard program was interesting for only 6% of farmers from studied group. Less than 17% of farmers used the Sectoral Operational Programme. Farmers suffered from these funds the buildings of liquid manure reservoirs and manure plates, tractors, agricultural machines and agricultural land.

In the article concerning issues of elastic employing employees were presented. They showed that elastic employing employees included the possibility of establishing by the employer the place of performing the work and of disintegrations of the working time, in permissible norms of the working time, in twenty-four hours, during the week and in the accounting period. Rational shaping labour cost enables the elasticity of these elements of the employment, without infringing regulations of the labour law. Apart from deliberations of this article matters of flexible forms of legal bases of employing remain so as: very employment, civil law agreements, temporary work.

The study focused on this part of labour market policy, which considers suport for unemployed, people with risk of unemployment as well as young people using suport within the career advice services. Institutions and organizations supporting employment services play the special role within these activities. Public state employment services play the main role in the Polish system of labour market. The main goals of the services activity are high quality labour, human resources development, complete and effective employment as well as supporting social integration and solidarity.

Integration of the New Member States with the euro zone and full realization of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) provides new economic opportunities. However, it requires fulÞ lment of the economic and legal convergence criteria, chich harmonize Þscal and monetary policies and incorporate the domestic central bank into the Eurosystem operations. Legal and economic adjustments require involvement of All sectors of the economy and public administration, and generate signiÞ cant adoption costs. The banking sector, as a main channel of transmission of euro currency to households and corporations incurs the highest costs. Additionally banks are expected to loss foreign exchange incomes. For the entire economy the largest share of the euro introduction costs constitute the costs of the IT adoption.

Emergence of foreign chains of super- and hypermarkets in Poland in 1990’s resulted in major changes in food distribution systems. Several channels, especially concerning FMCG were shortened. Foreign trade chains, aspiring to optimize transactions and possessing great economic potential, established direct contacts with producers, including agricultural producers, passing over the wholesale level. Opportunities and threats perceived by fruits and vegetables producers are an interesting element of the cooperation. This research shows that the main advantages for fruits and vegetables producers to deliver to hypermarkets are: certainty of payment, sale of large batches of goods as well as certainty and stability of the market. Main disadvantages are: low prices during promotions and high charges.

The paper presents the role of the EU structural funds in conducted In communes investment projects. Creating local development was the main objective of these investments. In order to the measurement of the EU structural funds meaning for the local development, the indicator of investment participation (% of the EU funds in total value of investments) was used. Also the share of the EU funds utilized by the communes In total costs of development projects was described. The conducted examinations showed that rural communes were allocating for investments relatively more financial resources from their budgets then the urban-rural ones. Basing on the research results, it is proved, that average share of co-financing coming from EU-funds in conducted so far investment serving the local development had amounted 14.85 percent.

In this paper living standards and quality of life in 32 European countries are described and discussed. To express living standards, both Gross domestic product per head of population in purchasing power parities (GDPpcPPP) and the Human development index (HDI) from the UNDP, consisting of GDPpcPPP, life expectancy at birth and an education index are used. Quality of life is expressed by the Quality of life index (QLI) from the Economist and consists of 9 different aspects. Furthermore, the author investigated the possibile importance of the income distribution for GDP pc and HDI. The results of some statistical calculations showed that there are high and positive correlations between GDP pc, life expectancy at birth and an education variable. Because of the construction of HDI, even the correlations between these variables and the index are high. Furthermore the rankings between the 32 countries, regarding HDI, GDP pc PPP and QLI have high and positive correlations. How important is income distribution? While the correlations between different income distribution variables are high and have the expected signs, the correlations between income distribution on one hand and GDP pc and HDI on the other hand had the expected signs, but are not significant.

The agricultural production in Poland is infl uenced by many risks, which make the effects of such activity uncertain. One of the methods used to manage such a risk is to insure plant and animal production. Such an insurance was used on a voluntary basis. Since July 2008 the crop protection is compulsory with regard to the farmers who use the direct payments. The paper aims to present the potential value of insurance premium connected to plant production, which might be collected by the insurers due to the compulsory insurance. There was also assessed the conjectural value of insurance premiums collected by the insurers under the minimal protection level of farmers. Moreover, the regional differences of demand for insurances were presented. The paper argues that due to new regulations that are come in force in 2009 there is an urgent need for further researches on agricultural insurances in Poland.