By Sarah Collins - 25th June 2008
The commission has confirmed receipt of plans from the Polish authorities for its shipyards at Gdynia, Gdansk and Szczecin after it warned them it might adopt a negative decision on state aid payments if they failed to submit them.
The commission had given Poland until midnight Thursday to submit proposals, and according to a commission spokesman, “We are already playing in extra time.”
The commission has been investigating state aid payments made to three major shipyards at Gdánsk, Gdynia and Szczecin for four years, to see if the payments breach competition rules.
A commission statement said they would now assess the plans to see if they meet strict rules on state aid.
According to Polish MEP Ryszard Czarnecki, Poland has very concrete plans to either merge the Gdánsk and Gdynia shipyards or to completely privatise Szczecin and Gdynia. But the rights of workers should not be overlooked, he told this website.
“Authorities can negotiate with investors on privatisation contracts, but first of all the European commission has to agree on that. As we can hear in Brussels, the new polish government has completely failed, but why should we hang shipyard workers for the government’s faults?”
Competition chief Neelie Kroes met with representatives of the historic Solidarity union, who were picketing the commission’s headquarters in Brussels on Wednesday, to deliver the commission's line.
She said that if the Polish authorities were able to come back with a “viable” plan that ensured compensation for possible breaches of competition already suffered, an injection of private money and no further use of public funds to aid the shipyards, she could give authorisation for the aid.
Otherwise, the commission can order the repayment of money already given, effectively rendering the shipyards bankrupt.
However, Czarnecki said the commission should take account of shipyard workers, despite the government's failure to come forward until now.
“The European commission should be more open to shipyard workers’ proposals, even though the new Polish government has not done a lot on this matter for the last nine months.
“It is a very important Polish industry, particularly needed at this stage when the world is seeing a shipyard industry boom,” he said.
