Limited energy resources, EU member countries’ budget capabilities impaired by the financial and debt crisis, Brexit, or the migration crisis that is causing serious consequences, are but a few serious challenges that the Union is going to face within the short-term perspective. One ought not forget about the increasingly powerful and meaningful threats to the Project Europe: rampant terrorism, increasing military activity of Russia (including its actions in eastern Ukraine, Crimea, or on the Sea of Azov), as well as the ambivalent (to say the least) attitude of the current President of the USA towards NATO. Even these few challenges and threats ought to cause for an increase in the decisive and, later on, organizational effort for the purpose of transforming the EU into an entity that shall be able to counteract and react to them. The intention of the author of this article is to provide an attempt to answer the question whether the indicated process is actually taking place.

The development of the Polish Navy after 1918 – selected problems

After The World War I, which ended on the 11th September 1918, Poland once again became an independent state after more than one hundred and twenty years of partitions and enslavement. The country began a slow and laborious process of rebuilding and reconstructing many branches of economy, industry and other fields. It was the time of strengthening the borders and rebuilding the army.
Polish Navy was born in 1918 and during the process of its development, it had to face numerous difficulties – staff, equipment, technical, and others. The marine forces were developed using, mainly, loans which were granted to Poland through international negotiations. At this time, Poland’s main lender and military ally was France. It was there where our very first battleships and their cannons were ordered. The very first orders were two destroyers and three underwater minelayers as well as their guns, cannons and weaponry, in the sense of artillery, mine, and torpedo weapon. The process of gaining new vessels was also built up by English loans, which were used to buy next two destroyers as well as their equipment. Another torpedoes were thus bought in Great Britain.
Despite many complications, the Polish Navy was in blossom. It had been brought to life by Józef Piłsudski on November 28th 1918.
In the paper there have been presented certain details concerning the main aspects of the destroyers and underwater minelayers in Poland after regaining independence.

The evolution of the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy under the influence of the European Commission – identifying a trend and assessing prospects for its continuance

Since the mid-2010s, the nature of EU’s CSDP has been constantly evolving – the significance of crisis management decreases, while the defence industry-related cooperation becomes increasingly intense. This is also manifested in the wider use of mechanisms inherent in “civilian” European integration – establishing of programs and funds in particular. The key driver of this change is arguably the active attitude of the European Commission, which has finally gained influence on the shape of the CSDP-related agenda through the instruments it has developed. This paper aims to characterize the key manifestations of this phenomenon and the broader logic behind (especially the determinants of such an evolution), and to analyze its significance for the EU’s “strategic autonomy” aspirations – opportunities for and potential constraints on making the cooperation within CSDP more dynamic.