The presented bill of amendment transposes the provisions of Directive 2019/904 of the European Parliament and of the Council (EU) on the reduction of the impact of certain plastic products on the environment into the Polish legal order. It provides for a ban on the marketing of single-use plastic products. Traders will be required to ensure the availability of reusable packaging or alternative packaging to single-use plastic products. It also introduces a number of requirements to be met by businesses marketing certain types of single-use plastic products. The author considers the proposed solutions to be reasonable and correct.
Analysing the programmes implemented in recent years to support various measures for local development, improvement of living conditions in rural areas or business activities in rural areas, the author finds that both the broadly understood concepts of ‘village renewal’ and ‘activation of local communities’ have been anchored in legislation and in the government’s programme documents. The smart village concept has also recently been included in the objectives of financial support for rural development. A prerequisite for the successful implementation of this concept is to further increase the availability of information and communication technologies in rural areas.
The article is an analysis of a petition that calls for the introduction of a provision specifying a unified maximum rate of fees for services of emptying out of waste tanks and transporting liquid waste. The argumentation of the petition is based on the allegation of discrimination against residents of rural areas, who bear higher costs of sewage disposal. The author of the article does not deny the existence of the problem, however, he alleges that the solution proposed in the petition is inadequate. According to the author, establishing uniform maximum fees for waste disposal will satisfy neither residents nor businesses. This is because a stiff price will not take into account local conditions on which the cost of such collection depends and will be, depending on the location, either too low or too high. However, the author is considering an alternative solution – granting municipal councils the right to set prices for such services with the concomitant right of entrepreneurs to compensation if they can prove that they have suffered a loss.
The proposed bill strengthens the role of municipalities in deciding on waste management decisionmaking within their area. In the authors view, the bill does not violate the constitutional principles of the social market economy or free enterprise. The adoption of the proposed provisions may have considerable impact on the municipal waste collection market, therefore it is worth considering establishing of a longer period of “absence of laws” (vacatio legis) or adoption of the transitional provisions. It was pointed out that the concept of a predominant part of the activity in the field of public services for the local government units used in the bill is broader in scope than the requirement of more than 80% of activities set out in Directive 2014/24. This may lead to awarding a public contract without a competitive procedure to companies that do not meet the requirements of the Directive.
This article describes the role of forests in climate change policy. It examines the inclusion of the forestry sector into the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol, focusing mainly on two concepts currently being developed in international debates: LULUCF (Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry) and REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation). In addition to providing an overview and analysis of these concepts, the article also outlines their potential consequences for forests in Poland and reviews the EU actions to include the forestry sector into European climate policy. Finally, some issues related to forest use for carbon offsetting and energy generation are discussed as well.
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