Abstract
Polish accession to the European Union has contributed to an extensive change of the Polish legislation, including substantive criminal law. The implementation of EU legal instruments led in particular to a change of definitions of crimes – new crimes were introduced and also already existing definitions were changed. The article aims at presenting the process of implementation of EU instruments taking as an example provisions on corruption and human trafficking. It argues that this process, which was one of the most powerful factors contributing to the change of the scope of criminalisation in the Polish criminal law over the last 15 years, lacked reflection on the ultima ratio principle and was full of mistakes made by the Polish legislator. As a result, a complete and real harmonisation of the Polish provisions with the EU criminalisation standards has not been fully achieved.
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