Poland’s budget is “ready to fund” efforts aimed at rebuilding the regions devastated by massive flood earlier this month, the country’s Finance Minister Andrzej Domanski told the parliament on September 25.

Extreme rain - which scientists say was likely made stronger by climate change - led to catastrophic flooding in Poland’s mountainous southwest. The government has pledged that not only it will rebuild affected areas but the reconstruction will aim at upgrading all infrastructure damaged by the high water.

“Flood recovery will take many months. The budget is ready to fund these efforts,” Domanski said during a parliamentary debate on the floods and the ways to address the devastation they caused.

“We have secured PLN2bn [€470mn] in the budget for flood recovery within [the first] 48 hours. This amount will be gradually increased as needed,” Domanski told the parliament.

There are no estimates yet as to the total cost of the recovery although Domanski said earlier this week that it would be in the “tens of billions of zloty”. 

The government says it will provide compensation to households to renovate or rebuild houses, rebuild infrastructure, and offer support to businesses. The funding will be secured via passing amendments to the state budget for 2025.

The government has also introduced VAT exemptions on donated goods and services for flood relief.

Economists believe that the flooding will not hamper Poland’s overall economic growth significantly while the reconstruction effort will push up the expansion rate in 2025-2026.

“The nationwide decline in GDP due to the flood will amount to between 0.1%-0.2% and the subsequent reconstruction will add a total of 0.8% to GDP in the next two years,” mBank said in an analysis.