KEY POINTS:
The Baltic shipyard that gave birth to Poland's legendary Solidarity trade union faced the prospect of imminent closure yesterday as Warsaw and the European Union locked horns over plans for the future of the loss-making yet hugely subsidised docks.
A sit-in strike by 17,000 workers at the Gdansk shipyard on the Polish coast in 1980 spawned the Eastern Bloc's first free trade union. Solidarnosc or Solidarity went on to become one of the key forces behind the collapse of Communism throughout the region in 1989.
But yesterday the yard's future was in the balance as Poland and the EU argued over a rescue plan for the docks. Under capitalism the dock's workforce has been cut to 3000 and the yard has relied almost entirely on Brussels subsidies in order to survive against tough competition from Southeast Asia.
The irony of the situation was not lost on Lech Walesa, the yard's odd- jobbing electrician who in 1980 became Solidarity leader and a decade later the country's first freely elected post-war president: "I would consider it a personal failure if we were unable to save the Gdansk shipyard," he told Polish television. "It would be like being unable to help our own mother."
The shipyard's future has been in dispute since late July when the European Commission delivered an ultimatum to the Polish Government insisting that it provide an adequate restructuring plan or face the prospect of having to pay back much of the €51 million ($91 million) the yard has received in subsidies since Poland joined the EU in 2004.
Yesterday Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski's Government met the EU's August 21 deadline and presented the commission with a restructuring plan. However, initial details of the Polish proposals suggested that it could fall short of Brussels' demands for major cuts in the yard's capacity.
The EU has insisted that the Gdansk yard close two of its three docks. However, under the Polish plan the yard would close only one dock. Pawel Poncyliusz, Poland's Deputy Economics Minister, defended the move, saying: "If we agree to the EU's requests and leave just one dock, then the Gdansk shipyard would be no more than a tiny business by 2010 - it would not be a shipyard any more."
Amelia Torres, an EU Commission's spokeswoman, said Poland's proposals were being studied by the EU's competition department. "What the commission wants to see is not a closed Gdansk shipyard but a genuine far-reaching restructuring of the company which will ensure its long-term viability," she said. "We are perfectly aware of the historical importance of the shipyard."
The emotional significance of the Gdansk shipyard in Poland can hardly be overstated. It is an icon of the country's fight against a totalitarian regime. Called the Lenin shipyard under communism, a huge monument comprised of steel crosses stands outside its front gate in memory of shipyard workers killed by police during an earlier anti-Communist uprising in 1970. Solidarity insisted that it be erected in front of Communist Party officials in 1980. Yet almost as soon as Poland embraced capitalism in 1990, the yard faced difficulties. While similar docks in the neighbouring Polish port of Szczecin flourished as a result of major Western-backed restructuring programmes, the Gdansk yard went bankrupt in 1996 and was only revived after it was bought out by its counterpart in the port of Gdynia.
The former Solidarity yard was nationalised in 2004 and has since been reliant on subsidy. Removal of EU funding would almost certainly force the yard to shut down and fuel the Government's latent hostility towards Brussels. The issue could well feature in the election campaign that is expected to follow Poland's plans this week to dissolve Parliament in the wake of intractable differences within its ruling coalition.
- Independent
