The aim of the paper is to evaluate the fiscal challenges which have appeared before EMU (Economic and Monetary Union) countries after four years of monetary union functioning. Then the author formulates conclusions for accession countries, which plan to be members of EMU in the near future. The first part of the paper deals with criteria of fiscal stabilization within EMU, their meaning and connections with economic growth. The fiscal stabilization criteria were taken from the Pact of Stabilization and Growth and in the Maastricht Treaty. The first criterion concerns budged deficit, whose relation to the GDP should be no higher than 3%. The second criterion concerns public debt, whose relation to the GDP should be no higher than 60%. Special procedure and sanctions are forecasted in case of a country which does not respect those criteria. It fundamentally limits possibilities of using fiscal policy to stabilize economy after the economic shocks. On the other hand, the fiscal criteria have also positive influence, because of implementation of discipline to the economic policy, which is created by the policymakers who act under policy cycle pressure. At that point, a problem of contradictions between short ormedium period of economic policy and long period in policymaker?s actions appears.

If we assume that effective economic policy should be based on the long-run stable rules to assure economic development in long period, we can conclude that fiscal discipline is necessary. But if we assume that government should apply fiscal policy for short run fine tuning of economic processes, we can consequently conclude that fiscal stabilization criteria limit government possibilities. After four years of EMU functioning, budged deficit and public debt have appeared as challenges again. Those selected countries are: Portugal, Germany and France. Reasons of budged deficit and public debt are different in each country. An explanation may be found in processes of adjustment to the Maastricht criteria in the period of the 90's. Research by M. Demertzis, M. Hallet and A.H. Rummel indicates that the convergence degree, which was revealed by fulfilling the Maastricht criteria at the end of the 90?s resulted from applying appropriate instruments of economic policy rather than from natural convergence processes in the area of economic and structural adjustments. The authors of the research also emphasise that although politics helped to create conditions which enabled the existence of the Economic and Monetary Union, from that time on the whole project has depended on the impact of all political changes.

In the case of fiscal stabilization, governments of many EMU countries increased tax burden rather than cut the budged expenditure to achieve lower deficit. In Germany, France, Portugal and many other countries governments did not implement radical reform of public finance structure. Recession which has started from 2000 is another problem. Especially deep recession has appeared in Germany. One of the reasons is rigidity of German economy and lack of deep public finance reform. The prospect of EMU is dependent on economic reforms in member countries. One of them is deep reform of public finance structure. The new member countries of the EU are facing the necessity of economic adjustment to the convergence criteria, and among them criteria of fiscal stabilization. Experiences of selected EMU countries let conclude that nominal convergence should be the result of real convergence processes. Thus fiscal stabilization should be the result of deep changes in the structure of public finance and tax systems.

The main goal of this article is to present the role of reserves and provisions in determining the level of profitability of Polish public companies, especially the level of ROE (Return on Equity). This article presents also a relationship between reserves and financial results of the enterprises, such as R (net revenues from sales of product, goods and materials), EBIT (earnings before interest and tax), EBT's (profit on commercial activity; EBT - earn before tax) and EAT (earnings after tax). This paper describes three kinds of reserves: reserves as the liability (reserve for income tax, social security reserves and other reserves), accruals and deferred income, and capital reserves, such as reserve capital, revaluation reserve capital and other reserve capital.

The paper presents the directions of transformations in the sphere of politics and economy taking place in Saudi Arabia in 1995-2004. The author tries to analyze the effects of the reforms being implemented, the degree to which they are comprehensive, as well as the level of threat to the reforms in the case of possible victory of antireformist forces in the Saudi Kingdom.

In the paper, the impulsive buying phenomenon taking place in big selfservice shops is described. By means of the Multiproduct Monopoly Model that can be applied to the super- and hypermarkets, formal grounds are shown for reduction in prices of basic products below the profitmaximizing level, as a way to induce a growth in demand for other goods in a complementary way linked with the former. In the conclusions, the popular perception is shaken according to which the hypermarkets' activities are aimed at ruining the small local shops. Also, certain effective promotional policies of hypermarkets are suggested.

In the paper, attempt was made to verify the not uncommon opinion about the collapse of the Swedish welfare state model. The first part of the paper was devoted to description of the Swedish model. Attention was drawn, among other things, to its features such as: the high level, universality and equality of social rights of all the citizens, the full employment policy and the solidaristic wage policy. Especially the Swedishmodel's particularity, i.e. the very high level of social expenditures was stressed and, in this connection, their size, structure and financing sources were presented. Then, the principles of organization of the following areas of the social security were discussed: the pension system, the health care system, the labour market policy and the family and social aid policy. The next part of the paper was devoted to the development trends of the Swedish economy, with special regard to the economic growth rate, the productivity, the level of unemployment and the condition of public finance. In the last part of the paper, basing on the analysis made, conclusions were drawn in the key question formulated in the heading of the paper.