EC considers Poland’s Gdansk shipyard plan

The European Commission has said that it will not set a date for a decision on the future of the Gdansk shipyard, which the EU has demanded scale down production capacity or pay back aid funds it has previously supplied to the historic ship builder.

The European Commission said it has not set a timetable for a decision on how to deal with the Gdansk shipyard after Polish authorities rejected demands to reduce capacity there.

The EC’s spokesman Neelie Kroes told a news conference, Tuesday: 'We have not yet decided when we will make a decision. We will be trying to find the best possible solution for Polish shipyards and for European shipyards.'

Last week, Poland rejected EU plans to reduce Gdansk’s three shipways to one, in an effort to make the yard more competitive. The shipyard’s vice-president Andrzej Buczkowski said that the works could survive if just one shipway was closed.

The shipyard sent to Brussels its final plan to limit its production on August 21.

Unofficially, the EC has let it be known that a decision on the shipyard’s future may be given by the end of October.

European Commission denied that its decision will be influenced by possible elections in Poland, and the process of finalising the works over the European Treaty.

Chairman of the European Parliament communist fraction Francis Wurtz, Tuesday, called that the EC’s rules absurd and added that Brussels’ activities will force the shipyard, which employs 3,000, into bankruptcy.

Francis Wurtz appealed for ‘solidarity’ with the shipbuilders who on August 31 are to stage a protest in Brussels.
Source: thenews.pl