Poland’s historic Gdansk shipyard secured its future as a working dock on Wednesday after European officials approved a restructuring plan and gave the green light for €251m of state aid under EU rules.

Neelie Kroes, EU competition commissioner, said she had concluded that the plan would ensure the viability of the yard, and that reductions in production capacity would be sufficient to compensate for the competitive distortions caused by years of government-subsidised operations there.