Warsaw - Hundreds of Polish shipyard workers rallied in the capital Friday demanding accountability for public aid given to the ailing facilities amid a deadline from Brussels for a Polish programme to reconstruct the Baltic yards.

Chanting "thieves," some 350 union members from the Gdansk shipyard burned tyres, threw eggs and set off petards near the Treasury Ministry.

The shipyard only received 50 million zlotys (23 million dollars), not the 700 million zlotys the European Commission believes, shipyard Solidarity union chief Roman Galezewski told the Polish Press Agency (PAP).

At a summit of European Union leaders Friday in Brussels, European Commission chief Jose Barroso reminded Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk that time was running out to solve the shipyard problem, PAP reported.

The commission, the EU's executive arm, is pressing the shipyards to agree on a restructuring plan or risk being forced to return the EU aid and face bankruptcy.

The Gdansk shipyards have sentimental value for many Poles as the site where Solidarity leader Lech Walesa challenged the country's communist regime in the 1980s, leading first to a martial-law crackdown but later to the fall of communism. (dpa)