(WARSAW) - Thousands of Polish shipyard workers threatened with joblosses marched in the streets of the Polish Baltic Sea port city of Szczecin Friday as the European Commission mulled the fate of two Polish shipyards.

"Under the current circumstances, we must defend ourselves," Solidarity union leader Krzysztof Fidura, one of the leader of the protest, told Poland's TVN24 news channel.

The European Commission insisted Friday that it had not taken a decision on Poland's plans to restructure troubled shipyards in Szczecin and Gdynia and that it was still studying them.

"Our analysis is still underway. The commission will endeavour to take a decision as soon as possible, but for the moment no date has been set for taking that decision," said competition issues spokesman Jonathan Todd.

However, he said it would come "in the next few weeks."

His remarks followed unconfirmed Polish media reports that EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes will reject the plans to save the heavily indebted shipyards, a move that would almost certainly spell their bankruptcy.

Workers protesting in Szczecin Friday want Poland's liberal Prime Minister Donald Tusk to petition Brussels to give the salvage plans the green light.

But in an ironic twist of history, workers at a third yard in Gdansk -- the historic cradle of the Solidarity union that defeated communism in Poland in 1989 -- were in Brussels Friday lobbying Commissioner Kroes to torpedo the Szczecin and Gdynia salvage plans.

The Gdansk yard was taken over last year by Ukraine's powerful Industial Union of Donbass (ISD), which has now bid to salvage the nearby Gdynia yard through a merger with Gdansk, move that could see jobs cut there.

"There is no more Solidarity or solidarity," Solidarity union leaders from the Gdynia yard said bitterly.

Owned by the state, the communist-era yards in Gdynia and Szczecin are mired in debt.

Under the Polish government plan, ISD has bid to acquire the Gdynia yard, while Mostostal Chojnice-Ulstein, a Polish-Norwegian consortium, is interested in the Szczecin yard.

But both investors want more public subsidies from the Polish government in order to push ahead with their privatisation and restructuring plans, risking rejection by the commission, which regulates competition in Europe.

Should Brussels fail to approve the restructuring plans, the yards -- under EU competition rules -- will be required to repay 2.1 billion euros (three billion dollars) in public subsidies and so face bankruptcy.

In light of recent European Commission plans to pump cash into European banks threatened with bankruptcy, the Polish government is optimistic that it may also give a green light to the yards.

Poland's Treasury Minister Aleksander Grad on Thursday threatened to take the case to the European Court should the Commission reject Warsaw's salvage plan.

Text and Picture Copyright 2008 AFP. All other Copyright 2008 EUbusiness Ltd. All rights reserved. This material is intended solely for personal use. Any other reproduction, publication or redistribution of this material without the written agreement of the copyright owner is strictly forbidden and any breach of copyright will be considered actionable.