The European Union is right in demanding an end to state subsidies for Polish dockyards, according to Lech Walesa, the co-founder of the Solidarity union movement born in the shipyards where he once worked.

Poland's government signalled Wednesday that EU officials have refused privatization plans for its ailing shipyards and said it would ask Brussels for an explanation.

With 60,000 shipyard jobs at stake, EU approval for a rescue plan that avoids mass layoffs is a critical task for Prime Minister Donald Tusk's government.

In an interview with The Times of Malta on Friday, Walesa, a former Polish president, said: "The European Union thinks that we have had enough time, that we have been delaying things. I'm sorry to say that I agree with that point of view ... I also look at myself and blame myself for this delay. I didn't work fast enough either."

Walesa, 65, said the Polish government cannot go for ever giving more sums of money to a specific group of workers at the expense of another group.

"Actually, it has been going on for quite a while ... a surprising amount of time in which taxpayers have been paying to help the shipyards," he said.

"We lost markets, we lost cooperation partners and now we have been restructuring and rebuilding our economy so we need some time to rebuild our shipyards until they can stand on their feet."

Besides the economic dimension, the shipyards carry strong emotive attachment for the Poles, having been the place where the anti- communist movement took off, eventually toppling the Soviet government. Walesa was a protagonist in that strife.

The former president is in Malta to deliver a talk - The Future Of Europe - Unity And Solidarity - on the 25th anniversary of his being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.