The Lie that the EU is pro-worker

[junketman]

Tens of thousands of Polish workers in their ship building industry face losing their jobs because of yet more nonsensical intervention by the EU.

The Polish ship building industry, which recieves state aid in the form of investment may well now be shut down because the EU has decided it doesn't like it.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/0709/poland.html

And of course, the EU commission, not being elected, the Polish people have no say in this. For 50 years after WW2, Poland had a thriving ship building sector but they are hardly in the door of the EU when they have been told to close it down. And the work will more than likely go to Korea or somewhere like that.

Are the EU Commission idiots or what? This makes no sense. Why put tens of thousands of skilled labourers out of work, with their mortgages and all that, just to prove a point. It's pure madness, typical of the busy body eurocrats trying to prove they are worth their salaries. If I was Poland, I would threathen to pull out of the EU over this. These employees will be condemned to unemployment for the rest of their lives probably because of this.

But of course this has all to do with the neo liberal agenda being pushed by the EU which has shown time and again little or no interest in the fate of millions of workers laid off because of stupid EU rules.

[MacCoise]

What the Soviets couldn't destroy..........

[seranka]

I might be wrong but didn't Poland know when joining the EU that this would be illegal??

[geraghd]

Tens of thousands of Polish workers in their ship building industry face losing their jobs because of yet more nonsensical intervention by the EU.

The Polish ship building industry, which recieves state aid in the form of investment may well now be shut down because the EU has decided it doesn't like it.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/0709/poland.html

And of course, the EU commission, not being elected, the Polish people have no say in this. For 50 years after WW2, Poland had a thriving ship building sector but they are hardly in the door of the EU when they have been told to close it down. And the work will more than likely go to Korea or somewhere like that.

Are the EU Commission idiots or what? This makes no sense. Why put tens of thousands of skilled labourers out of work, with their mortgages and all that, just to prove a point. It's pure madness, typical of the busy body eurocrats trying to prove they are worth their salaries. If I was Poland, I would threathen to pull out of the EU over this. These employees will be condemned to unemployment for the rest of their lives probably because of this.

But of course this has all to do with the neo liberal agenda being pushed by the EU which has shown time and again little or no interest in the fate of millions of workers laid off because of stupid EU rules.

The Commission are just enforcing agreed European laws that the Polish government among every other one signed up to.
Its a competition issue. And on an ideological level, govt shouldn't be subsidising loss making businesses. According to that news report, the ship yards haven't made a single profitable ship in 4 years. And state aid is allowable if it is accompanied by a plan that aims to attain long term liability. If that isn't the case, only the govt is to blame (though not really this current govt since they only just arrived), not the European Commission.
You should direct your anger elsewhere methinks.
Otherwise this seems like the 50th anti-EU thread this week.

[locke]

So the alternative is to subsidise them to make ships at a loss, putting workers in St Nazaire and Belfast out of work?

[geraghd]

So the alternative is to subsidise them to make ships at a loss, putting workers in St Nazaire and Belfast out of work?

Well apparently only Polish workers constitute rightful workers which the EU hates. Other workers aren't really workers at all.

[TradCat]

There is an irony to the fact that the workers who did so much to bring down communism are now thrown on the scrapheap by capitalism. The jobs that are lost now are lost to future generations too. Food for thought indeed.

[Edo]

Yeah what about the other 85,000 shipbuilders in the EU who are getting on fine without State Aid - are they to be put out of work because of state subsidised competition

And what about the polish taxpayer ? - subsidising private industry producing products that will be sold to private operators - nada in it for them.

[baldur0300]

I might be wrong but didn't Poland know when joining the EU that this would be illegal??

Of course they did. A ban on state aid to industry is one of the most basic elements of the EU.

To suggest that the EU is somehow anti-worker is absurd in the extreme. The measures that have been introduced by the EU have increased worker protection immeasurably.

[MacCoise]

And on an ideological level, govt shouldn't be subsidising loss making businesses. .

And therein lies the rub.....