Today is the deadline for Poland to answer EU questions about its subsidisation of the Gdansk shipyards, home of the Solidarity trade union that defied communism, or repay the tens of millions of euro that it has used to keep them running.
In July, Brussels gave Warsaw a month to respond to queries about how the Polish government has propped up the ailing shipyard and what it plans to do with it, amid suspicions that its support for the Baltic docks may have broken EU competition law.
Fighting the highest jobless rate in the EU, Poland is loath to restructure Gdansk and two nearby yards - Gdynia and Szczecin - that employ thousands of people, and it has pumped €1.3 billion of Brussels's money into them since joining the union in May 2004.
The EU has welcomed Warsaw's plans to streamline operations at Gdynia and Szczecin, and the yards will not have to give back any money; but the government's failure to reveal what it wants to do with Gdansk could result in a demand for repayment of perhaps €50 million in subsidies, a bill that could bankrupt the historic yard.
A spokesman for the European Commission said last month that two of Gdansk's three shipbuilding slipways would probably have to close for restructuring to be effective at the loss-making enterprise.
Poland's deputy economy minister Pawel Poncyliusz said a bill for €50 million would cripple the yard.
"If the Gdansk shipyard is forced to return the public aid in the amount calculated by the Commission, it would mean bankruptcy," Mr Poncyliusz said, adding that he would try to ensure that negotiations with Brussels avoided job cuts.
Brussels has been investigating state subsidies to the Baltic shipyards for two years, but now looks set for another row with the Kaczynski twins, Poland's president and prime minister, former Solidarity members who regularly clash with the EU.
"The European Commission acts within the framework of European law," prime minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski said when asked about the threat to the Gdansk shipyards.
"But if you ask me the question: am I ready to defend - at all costs - the shipyards where I spent weeks as a Solidarity demonstrator? The answer is, I am ready to defend them. At all costs."
Part of the Gdansk shipyard houses a museum to the Solidarity union .
The yard is also being defended by Lech Walesa, one of the founders of Solidarity, who went on to become Poland's president and win a Nobel Prize for his role in creating the first free trade union in the communist bloc.
