(GDYNIA) - In an irony of history, Poland's shipyards became prisoners of their heroic role in overturning communism, and to stay alive must now plunge into the free market after years of delay.

The European Commission has set Warsaw a September 12 deadline to come up with deep reform plans for the ailing sector, a bullet successive Polish governments have failed to bite on.

This was because of political sensitivities surrounding the yards' respected history as bastions of resistance to communism.

If the government cannot satisfy Brussels, it faces having to recoup an estimated 2.1 billion euros (3.3 billion dollars) in state aid doled out to the industry since 2002, support which the commission says flew in the face of EU competition rules.

That would all but assure the sector's demise.

Since 2005, the commission has unsuccessfully pushed Poland to reform the shipyards in the northern ports of Gdynia and Gdansk, and Szczecin in the northwest.

Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk, a steadfast economic liberal, this week said things were "on the right track" but warned against an "overdose of optimism".

"The road to saving the yards is still long," he said.

Poland's shipyards are etched into history because dozens of people were killed there in 1970 when security forces fired on workers demonstrating against food price rises.

Gdansk later played an even greater role: an 1980 strike there gave birth to Solidarity, the communist bloc's first free trade union, which snowballed into a national movement, survived a military crackdown in 1981 and reemerged to steer Poland to democracy and the free market in 1989.

The strike turned Lech Walesa, a shipyard electrician and Solidarity founder, into an international figure. He was Poland's president from 1990-1995.

"The shipyard workers overthrew the communist system. They were a real force. Successive management teams and government have been afraid of that force, and that's why it's been so difficult to reform the yards," Walesa told AFP.

"But Polish shipyard workers know how to work, so the EU should give them a chance to prove it," he said.

Poland's shipbuilding sector was already struggling in the dying days of communism.

Despite private investment and capacity-cutting it had trouble facing the winds of capitalism after 1989, and the state stepped back in.

"Before the fall of communism the Polish yards were working 99 percent for the Soviet Union. After the fall, they totally lost their markets," said Walesa.

"They lacked good managers, and governments haven't known what to do with them," he added.

Gdansk went bankrupt in 1996, only be to revived in 1998 when it was bought by Gdynia.

In 2004 -- the year Poland joined the EU -- Gdynia found itself in dire straits and was taken back under the wing of the state.

The authorities broke up the combined operation in 2006 -- Gdynia remains in state hands, while Gdansk, which was taken over last year by Ukraine's Donbass group, is still required to give Brussels restructuring plans.

Szczecin, meanwhile, was a relative success in the early 1990s, but lost ground after flawed management and was brought back under state control.

Poland's shipbuilding sector employs a total of 60,000 people, including the yards' subcontractors.

Brussels' decision to grant extra time has given little solace to those who have spent their working lives at the yards and fear for their jobs.

"I don't know how I'm going to feed my family," said Krzysztof Wnuk, who for the past 32 years has been painting ships at Gdynia.

"I've experienced moments of glory and despair but now, this is really the worst," a teary-eyed Wnuk told AFP.

But with a growing number of labour markets open to Poles thanks to EU membership, some younger workers are unfazed.

Welder Rafal Stefanowski, 24, said he would have no problem joining the estimated two million Poles who have headed abroad.

"I could get a job in Norway, Ireland or Britain. I can change profession. The unions are leading us up the garden path. They could also have done something to avoid bankruptcy," he said.

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