The European Union increasingly in€uences the member states, their political institutions, business groups, commercial business sector and the citizens. The institutions, politics and legal regulations of the Communities in€uence also countries and human beings from outside the Union. is in€uence means that each member state of the European Union has its own representative in the European Institutions such as European Parliament, European Commission, the Court of Justice and the Court of Auditors.

The process of consultations with civil society is important as it contributes to a transparent legislative process and a good balance of interests in the legislative proposals. In the European Union works on the consultations with stakeholders have accelerated with the publication of the White Paper on European Governance in 2001. In Poland, we have been observing a number of initiatives concerning public consultations and dialogue with civil society in recent years, both on the side of the central administration and the non-governmental organisations. In this context, the analysis of the European consultation standards is even more important. It seems that the European experience in that area constitutes a good reference for the national solutions. This article analyses the EU standards concerning the process of consultations with interested parties. Having in mind effectiveness of EU lobbying groups as well as certain weak points of the Commission consultation process, this article seeks, in particular, to evaluate the Commission new “Stakeholder Consultation Guidelines”. The article concludes also with some reflections on how the EU standards could apply for the Polish consultation practices in the legislative works.

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.