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Post by Jaga on Oct 2, 2008 23:04:27 GMT -7
European Commissioner for Competition Neelie Kroes is to reject plans for restructuring the Polish shipyards in Gdynia, Gdansk and Szczecin. The decision could force the yards into bankruptcy.
The commissioner told the Poland’s Treasury Minister Aleksander Grad at a meeting in Brussels on Tuesday.
After the meeting, the Treasury Minister Grad told reporters that the EU Commissioner Kroes is questioning, above all, state aid given to the shipyards since Poland joined the union in 2004, amounting to 2.3 billion euros. She believes the aid has been too high and violates EU competition laws.
Grad, however, said there still is hope for the yards, which employ over 15,000 workers. He said that all the Polish plan needed was “a little bit of goodwill” from the EU Commissioner, which is evidently lacking at the moment.
Grad added that he asked for a thorough analysis of the programmes in writing so that Poland could respond to any reservations.
If the EC does formally reject the plans and orders the Polish shipyards to repay state aid, the plants will face bankruptcy. (jm)
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Post by tuftabis on Oct 2, 2008 23:42:28 GMT -7
European Commissioner for Competition Neelie Kroes is to reject plans for restructuring the Polish shipyards in Gdynia, Gdansk and Szczecin. The decision could force the yards into bankruptcy. The commissioner told the Poland’s Treasury Minister Aleksander Grad at a meeting in Brussels on Tuesday. After the meeting, the Treasury Minister Grad told reporters that the EU Commissioner Kroes is questioning, above all, state aid given to the shipyards since Poland joined the union in 2004, amounting to 2.3 billion euros. She believes the aid has been too high and violates EU competition laws. Grad, however, said there still is hope for the yards, which employ over 15,000 workers. He said that all the Polish plan needed was “a little bit of goodwill” from the EU Commissioner, which is evidently lacking at the moment. Grad added that he asked for a thorough analysis of the programmes in writing so that Poland could respond to any reservations. If the EC does formally reject the plans and orders the Polish shipyards to repay state aid, the plants will face bankruptcy. (jm) One side of the story is that Polish governments since 2002 have done not enough to fix the problem, and this is the first one which really tried. The second side is Brussels demonstrating hipocrisy here - they are pumping a lot of money into the economic sector, while they are against this indeed very particular casus of helping the actual industry. This same problems have the shipyards in Croatia, Greece, and if I recall correctly also in Malta. Yet another side to the problem is that the German shipyards in the postcommunist part of the country is receiving huge governement help to which Brussels agrees. |
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Post by Jaga on Oct 3, 2008 8:10:55 GMT -7
I think it is just hard to help everybody. Germany contributes the biggest share to EU, so they expect something in exchange.
I was in Sweden already at the end of 1980-es and their shipyards were dead by then...
Soviet Union was the biggest buyer of our ships. It sounds contradicting - when you think about the workers which fought for Solidarity, but this is a truth.
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Post by tuftabis on Oct 4, 2008 1:56:58 GMT -7
I think it is just hard to help everybody. Germany contributes the biggest share to EU, so they expect something in exchange. I was in Sweden already at the end of 1980-es and their shipyards were dead by then... Soviet Union was the biggest buyer of our ships. It sounds contradicting - when you think about the workers which fought for Solidarity, but this is a truth. Still the problem remains. It is not the right way when problems are fixed at Brussel's discretion and not by following clear transparent rules. Polish shipyards needed the government help Brussells now objects due to competiting with heavily subsided German shipyards, not because there is no demand for ships in the world since Soviet Union was dead. At the same time Brussels allows government intevention into some other industry sectors and into banking sector. It is very hard to explain for the thousands shipyards workers who are to loose their jobs. I'm not sure if I recall correctly there're 100,000 employees there. Now a liitle game for anyone wanting to have some stereotypes shattering fun. Please name, without checking on the net, three countries who pay the most for each own citizen (per capita) into the EU budget yearly. And then name three who receive most to continue the fun. There's no need to check anything on the net, I provided the answers at the bottom. Have fun and scroll down after you make up your mind. Am I right at least some of you answered - the major payers Germany, France, Great Britain? And the major recipents - Poland, Czechia, Hungary? Scroll down for the answers. Here is a comparison of net contributions/receipts in EU for a budget period of 2007-2013, yearly. The three major net contributors per capita per year. Which is in normal talk how much in balance a country pays for each own citizen each year into EU budget [in euros (€)] 1.Dutch 210 2.Dane 189 3.Swede 172 and the rest of the stake 4.German 149 5.Austrian 146 6.Brit 133 7.French 115 8.Italian 111 9.Finn 100 10.Belgian 86 11.Irish 20 12.Cypresee18 13.Spaniard 7 The three major net recipients – how much in balance a country receives for each citizen from EU each yeat throughout 2007-2013 period 1. Luxembourgian 2310 2. Estonian 341 3. Hungarian 341 and the rest of the lucky guys 4.Greek 319 5.Lithuanian 308 6.Czech 306 7.Slovak 291 8.Latvian 288 9.Pole 244 10.Portuguese 229 11.Slovenian 206 12.Bulgarian 180 13.Maltese 175 14.Romanian 166 |
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