Restructuring plans to be rejected?

Hundreds of Solidarity union members travelled to protest in Brussels last week after EU Commissioner for Competition Neelie Kroes expressed her opinion that restructuring plans for the Gdańsk, Szczecin and Gdynia shipyards should be rejected and state aid returned. The three shipyards would have to repay more than €2.3 (zł.7.87) billion, resulting in their bankruptcy.

Treasury Minister Aleksander Grad has suggested that the government might still have a plan up its sleeve to save the shipyards, which have been troubled for years. He met with Kroes in Brussels last week to discuss Poland's restructuring plans, but told reporters that the meeting hadn't gone well. He did not specify what the alternative plan might involve.

An appeal was launched by the Polish minister to European Commission President José Manuel Barroso, to set up an independent team of experts to evaluate the restructuring plan.

Krzysztof Zaremba, a Civic Platform MP, suggested that an unfavorable EC ruling on the shipyards could result in a tit-for-tat response on the Lisbon Treaty. "If [the EU] stands behind the decision of the commissioner to bankrupt the shipyards, then we should hold off on the ratification process," he told Dziennik. "They treat us like dirt. It's unacceptable. If this is the case, let Europe wait for the treaty," he concluded.

The EC's reticence to assist Poland's shipyards has drawn criticism, especially after it recently agreed on a much larger aid program to bailout Belgian banks. The EC argues, however, that this was not abuse of state aid, but a move necessary to safeguard the market.