Polish shipyard workers protest in Brussels

(BRUSSELS) - About 300 Polish workers protested outside the EU headquarters in Brussels on Tuesday to defend their jobs in the country's debt-ridden shipyards.

The noisy but peaceful demonstration, complete with firecrackers and smoke cannisters. was dominated by black and white "Solidarity" banners, the name of the famous trade union movement which sprung from the docks in the Soviet era.

"We want to show that the shipyards are very important for us and for our families," said Marek Kozielecki, a worker at the bankruptcy-threatened Gdynia yard.

"We want to save the shipyards and our jobs".

The protesters took their demands to Brussels as the European Commission is deeply involved in plotting the future of Gdynia and fellow communist-era shipyard Szczecin, both mired in debt and under the microscope of EU competition regulations.

Last week, Poland said that it had accepted a salvage plan proposed by Europe's competition commissioner Neelie Kroes to rescue the state-owned shipyards.

Should Warsaw and Brussels fail to agree on the final implementation of the new rescue package, 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.

Under the EU deal the assets of both shipyards would be pooled and put up for sale in "an open, unconditional tender."

Whoever acquires the shipyards could carry on business without the huge burden of having to refund public subsidies.

A third yard in Gdansk -- the historic cradle of the Solidarity union that defeated communism in Poland in 1989 -- was taken over last year by Ukraine's powerful Industrial Union of Donbass.

The European Commission, the EU's executive arm, has said that its scheme will mean fewer lay-offs at the yard than a plan put forward by the Polish authorities last month, which included more state subsidies.

Kroes has said that a separate plan is needed to deal with the public subsidy debt accumulated over the years by the Gdansk yard, where Poland's 1980's Solidarity hero Lech Walesa once worked as an electrician.