In Poland, a battle over future of the Gdansk shipyards

Lukasz Wrona was not even born when Lech Walesa faced down Poland's Communist leaders at the gates of the Gdansk shipyards in 1981, and he asserts that the city's future should not be held hostage by its history.

"It's the services industry that's important in Europe now," said Wrona, 25, a computer programmer for Compuware, an American company that opened its Polish offices in Gdansk two years ago. "The shipyard is above all a symbol of the past."

The government's battle to save the shipyard, despite criticism from the European Union, culminated in an agreement last month to sell the complex to a Ukrainian company and has masked a new revolution in Gdansk. Computer services, tourism and amber jewelry now underpin the city's economy, diminishing the importance of the shipyard that was once its biggest employer.

This time, Walesa is trying to resist the change.

"I don't agree with the theory that the shipyard belongs to Gdansk's past but not to its future," Walesa, 64, said at his office in Gdansk, with a laptop computer to his left and a flat-screen monitor to his right. "You don't destroy your mother, you have to help to find a solution, to make her an example of economic efficiency."

The shipyard now employs about 3,000 people, a fifth the work force it had when Communist rule ended in 1989.

The yard, founded in 1945 on land once occupied by Nazi military workshops, is situated next to the Baltic Sea and the city's old town, with its cobbled streets, medieval churches and pedestrian areas lined with jewelry stalls.

The Baltic Property Trust, based in Copenhagen, plans to take advantage of that location by investing in a mall, hotel and luxury apartments to be built on land formerly owned by the shipyard. Construction of "Mlode Miasto," or "Young City," is scheduled to begin in the first quarter.

The shipyard still occupies 70 hectares, or 173 acres, of waterfront property, about half the land covered by the old Lenin Shipyard, and operates three slipways. The yard has built more than 1,000 vessels.

The European Union threatened in July to declare at least €1.3 billion, or $1.9 billion, of aid to Poland's three state-run shipyards illegal unless the country shut two of the Gdansk slipways. Under EU rules, the money should have been accompanied by a plan to make the companies profitable.

While Poland pledged to phase out the subsidies by 2014, the EU rejected the offer as too late and unfair because competitors had already been forced to undertake "painful restructuring," said Jonathan Todd, a spokesman for the European competition commissioner, Neelie Kroes.

Industrial Union of Donbass, based in the eastern Ukraine city of Donetsk, in October stepped in with an offer to bail out the yard. Donbass said it may repay some of the state aid and pay €110 million to increase its stake to more than 80 percent. The EU has asked for the deal to be completed by February.

"I'll do all I can to ensure it is finished in February as the EU has requested, but we can't rule out a certain delay," said Treasury Minister Aleksander Grad.

Andrzej Jaworski, chief executive of the shipyard operator, Stocznia Gdanska, is counting on the sale to keep the slipways open and permit his company to profit from a boom in shipbuilding.

"Especially once the privatization deal goes through, better times are coming," Jaworski says. "There are a lot of commissions around, and we have the potential to get a large number of them."

Gdansk's recent successes have had more to do with tourism and amber than the shipyard. The number of travelers passing through Gdansk's Lech Walesa Airport, served by airlines including EasyJet, Lufthansa and SAS, rose to a record 1.26 million last year, five times the figure in 1999.

Walesa's 31-year-old son, Jaroslaw, is even training as a tour guide.

"We have to appreciate and respect the heroism of the people and their actions, but we also have to foster the development of our city and our country," said Jaroslaw Walesa, a member of Parliament from the Citizens' Platform party, which won national elections in October.

One of Gdansk's most important resources is amber, the fossilized resin that is found along the Baltic coast. The amber industry now employs 7,500 people, more than twice the number of workers at the shipyard.

Unemployment in Gdansk runs at 5.6 percent, less than half the national average and down from 13 percent three years ago.

"They say that many shipyard workers came over to work in the amber trade when they lost their jobs," said Ewa Rachon, deputy head of the World Amber Council, which is based in Gdansk. "As time goes on, I think amber will have a far bigger significance for Gdansk than the shipyard."

Wrona, the computer programmer, says he sees his future in Gdansk, even though many of his contemporaries have sought work in other parts of Europe. As for the shipyard that made the city famous, Wrona has a plan.
"It could stay as a museum, maybe," he said. "But not as a working shipyard."

Source: ByKatya Andrusz Bloomberg News

iht.com