The last, so-called eastern enlargement of the European Union is still controversial issue also from the purely economic point of view. However, taking into account respective theory on the long-run it should strengthen the overall international competitiveness of the enlarged Union and there are even first insights supporting such an attitude.

Due to many gravitational forces the eight Eastern and Central European new member countries (NMES-8) of the enlarged European Union are on the way of deepening economic integration with their traditional partners upgrading among others trade, capital as well as technology dependence and interdependence. The role of intra-industry complementarity is clearly increasing with all the positive consequences. However, the differentiated intensity of respective restructuring processes between the NMES-8 countries can be observed when taking into account appropriate statistical data and results of various analyses concerning 1999–2005 period.

Within the enlarged European Union, Poland—the leader in the early years of systemic transformation—has so far made only relatively limited use of the possibilities for deepening and widening division of labour with other countries of the enlarged European Union. This is due to many reasons, while the relatively slow restructuring in comparison with other new EU member countries as well as some lags with regard to institutional changes seem to be of greatest importance. Therefore there is to learn a lot from other NMES countriesi' experiences.

On 1 May 2004, new East and Central European states that had made a major breakthrough in their social and economic system found themselves within the European Union area. A fundamental decision of capital importance for their future had been the transformation of centrally planned economies into market economies. This required an extreme determination, consistence and sacrifices, and entailed different social and economic costs. The economies in transformation carried out many indispensable reforms and among them changes in the functioning of the banking sector, development of an independent central bank and choice of a defined monetary policy strategy.

The fundamental problem in the monetary policy of the East and Central European countries was the necessity to get under control the high inflation and build up the credibility of their national currencies in the face of both the changing external conditions and the differentiation of the political, economic and social situation in the group of the countries in question. Stabilization of prices on a low level became the main criterion in the adaptation processes of those countries on their road to integration with the European Community structures. This criterion also became the most important determinant of the monetary policy and its strategies adopted by the individual countries running for the EU membership.

The paper focused on presentation of the methods adopted by the group of East European Baltic countries in the conduct of their economic policy. Thus, the monetary policy of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia was presented. These three countries distinguish themselves among the new EU members by their geopolitical situation because all of them have emerged from the disintegration of the Soviet Union and constitute a relatively homogeneous group of economies in transformation. Certain elements of homogeneity can also be observed in the monetary policy adopted by them. In the first part of the paper, the essence of the exchangerate strategy applied in practice by the new Baltic EU member countries was characterized. Then, in consideration of the fact that the most important conditions substantial from the point of view of the monetary policy, and related to the accession of the countries in question to the Eurosystem, were the independence of the central bank and the definition of the main goal of their monetary policy so as to make it compatible with the goal of the European Central Bank, the process of shaping the monetary policy in the individual countries was presented in more detail, in concentrating on the problem of institutional independence of the central bank and on the main goals and instruments of the monetary policy. Also, the course of the inflationary processes over the period of 1997–2005 was monitored.

Poland’s accession to the EU increases the role of the public finance as well in the economic as in the social and ecological spheres; it permits utilization of the European funds: the regional, structural, cohesion and ecological funds, thus accelerating a balanced economic, social and ecological development; makes a substantial improvement in the infrastructure possible, if supported by utilization of own means; by applying the principle of solidarity in the allocation of financial aid, results in a reduction in the economic and social differentiation; reduces the unemployment both directly by cofinancing the active labour-market policy projects and by cofinancing other projects that indirectly promote employment; by giving the self-government bodies access to the Community aid, makes it easier for them to execute projects that improve the local infrastructure; promotes changes in the price system and in the level and structure of budget revenues; by enforcing a certain tax harmonization, brings about more neutral market competition conditions, contributes to Europeanization of the labour relations and conditions as well as to the environment protection by imposing certain ecological standards.

The subject of this paper is the personnel strategy and its perceptions by managers and other workers. The basic problem of this paper could be put into questions: how is the personnel strategy (and their different types) perceived by managers and other workers in a crisis situation and is there direct dependence between the perceived strategies and the managers and workers’ behavior? In order to find answer to the questions th efollowing research was planned. In the first stage there were 63 managers trying to describe the types of strategies. In the second stage 123 workers and 32 managers took part in the research. The complete data proved that the realized strategies were perceived independently of the extent of effort taking part in their introduction and the workers didn’t like to share their knowledge. The other results achieved in the research indicated that personnel strategies utilizing restrictions and mental pressing were evaluated positively (by some workers) and negatively by others.

The influences of nominal effective exchange rate of hryvnya and wholesale price index changes to value of profitability of the economy is defined by application of correlation-regression analysis. The recommendations about optimization of currency and price policy for improvement of economic efficiency of the economy of Ukraine are framed.

The article touches the problem how to valuate such specific goods as human health and life. The study provides the results of the first Polish valuation of life year gained (VOLY) in the context of air pollution on the level of 32,0–70,4 thousand PLN. Presented contingent valuation method survey was conducted within European Commission NEEDS project. Common questionnaire was implemented in 8 European countries: Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, France, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Spain, Denmark. Poland’s research was conducted by Warsaw Ecological Economics Centre in 2004–2006. The monetary indicators can be used in decisive processes in health care and environmental protection sectors. Taking into account first Polish experiences in valuation of life year and trends in development of valuation methods, some directions for future research in this field have been outlined.