The European Commission said in a statement that the owners of the Gdańsk yard, privatised in 2007, had presented a restructuring plan that would to a large extent be financed from private resources raised by the yard and its owner.
The executive arm of the 27-nation European Union promised on 2 June to approve Poland's rescue package for its historic Gdańsk shipyard, boosting the pro-EU, centre-right government a week ahead of the European Parliament elections (EurActiv 3/06/09).
The Commission said the proposed restructuring plan will ensure the viability of the yard and that competition concerns, caused by years of subsidised operations, will be reduced by production capacity closures.
The EU executive is satisfied that the plan is in line with the requirements of its guidelines on rescue and restructuring aid.
The yard will close two out of the three existing slipways, and has committed to operating with a single slipway or alternative launching facility, with a maximum production of 100,000 compensated gross tonnage annually, the Commission said.
There is no mention of how many jobs will have to go. But workers have claimed that the work force could shrink by a third with the loss of some 1,000 jobs, the Polish press reports.
It was in Gdańsk in 1980 that electrician Lech Wałęsa set up Solidarity, the then Soviet bloc's first free trade union, which helped overthrow communism in the region twenty years ago. Wałęsa went on to become Poland's president (1990-1995). He won the Nobel peace prize in 1983.
(EurActiv with Reuters.)
