Journal of Security and Sustainability Issues

The study includes an analysis of the functioning of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises during the COVID-19 pandemic from the perspective of financial security management of these entities. The article covers the identification of threats in the area of finances of the discussed enterprises that arose during the pandemic, as well as the assessment and approach to financial risk management in these entities. As a result, the key categories of threats to the financial security of enterprises, arising during the COVID-19 pandemic, were presented, as well as the assessment of the effectiveness of state services responsible for ensuring financial security. The study focuses on multidimensional data analysis in terms of their grouping and unraveling in terms of comparing the considered variables in terms of dynamics. Initial studies were performed by comparing several variables, and the data were analyzed not only during the COVID-19 pandemic, but also in the pre-pandemic period in terms of observing their fluctuations in dynamic terms, and the relationships between them were also examined.

The aim of the article is to present the basic aspects of command, functioning, decision-making, and responsibility. The author focuses on showing the broadly understood command system, especially in the course of implementing security tasks. Therefore, the content of the article presents an analysis of basic definitions, goals, assumptions, strategies of action for correctly perceived command based on the authority and genius of the person at the forefront of this process - the commander.

The energy security of the Visegrad Group countries is a derivative of their energy potential resulting from the lack of strategic natural gas and crude oil resources, limited fuel storage capacity and limited access to the transmission network. This causes a dependence on supplies of raw materials from Russia, which is not even, but applies to each of these countries. The Czech Republic and Slovakia have small deposits of natural gas and crude oil. Hungary and Poland have greater potential, but it is still not enough to achieve energy independence. The energy market of the V4 countries is of interest to the Russian Federation, but it is not a priority for it as it accounts for a small part of Russian transmissions. Russia aims to keep the market for crude oil and natural gas at a uniform level, but the actions of the V4 countries in terms of diversification of supplies, aimed at increasing the level of energy security, effectively hinder the implementation of this goal. The threat to the energy security of the V4 countries is related to their dependence on gas supplies from Gazprom. The terms of the contracts contain unfavorable clauses that negatively affect the sale of surplus Russian gas, as it is necessary to pay fees for the ordered gas regardless of the scale of its use. The differentiation in the energy policy of the Member States is also worth noting. An example is the lack of clear opposition from the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia to the plans to expand the Nord Stream and Turkish Stream gas pipelines. These states show interest in participating in projects, which, in fact, constitute the implementation of the Russian concept of building new transmission routes. Poland takes a different position, consistently preventing the implementation of Russian energy projects.

Security of societies has become one of urgent issues in contemporary world. Too frequently we started encountering one or another form of malicious behavior, criminal activities or terrorism. New and complex threats highlight the need for further synergies and closer cooperation at all levels. Awareness, preparedness and resilience of societies emerge as key preconditions of further secure and sustainable economic development and general well-being. A special attention in those conditions has to be paid to development of theoretically grounded approach to protection of critical infrastructure (CIP), damage or disruption of which can be immensely harmful to unprepared and therefore vulnerable institutions and society. The aim of this paper is to lay theoretical foundations for theoretically grounded approach towards research in CIP area, in order to formulate, ultimately, an approach towards action, which, employing leadership societal stakeholders would allow to enhance awareness of society actors about the threats, i.e, to develop ability to recognize, prevent, and, in case of disaster, to resist to consequences of critical infrastructure infringement. Hence, enhanced resilience of society to critical infrastructure infringement is and ultimate goal of fostering of leadership for critical infrastructure protection.

Presented paper suggests an instrumental approach to soft security and aims to reveal capacity of soft security instruments in terms of contribution to both security and sustainable development in the region which is addressed by Eastern Dimension of European Neighbourhood Policy and which includes Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. Russian Federation (which is neither part of EaP nor among 16 EU partners addressed by the European Neighbourhood Policy) is also included in the overview as an important factor of influence in respect of regional security and relations between EaP states and EU. Referring to the main ideas of researchers and policy makers using different approaches to soft security as a phenomenon, the authors of the paper define soft security instruments as purposely organised social practices which rely mainly on sharing, congruence and development of values and competences of initiators and participants of security governance. Focus on the effectiveness of sharing, congruence and development of values and competences of initiators and participants of the EU policies and related joint projects as well as relevant combinations of soft instruments with economic and normative hard means is seen as a possibility to gradually increase level of regional security and transfer elements leading to sustainable development in this region.