Poland's flood response puts PM Donald Tusk under pressure

In two weeks' time, Poland's ruling center-left coalition and its leader, Donald Tusk, will celebrate the first anniversary of their victory in the Polish parliamentary election.

But for the Polish prime minister, this is no time for celebration.

His response to the flood in the early days of the crisis in mid-September has brought him much criticism — and not only from the national-conservative opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party.

The extreme weather triggered by Storm Boris hit swathes of land across Central and Eastern Europe hard. After causing widespread damage in Romania, the Czech Republic and Austria, the floods reached Poland in the middle of last month.

Flooding in western Poland

The flood wave on the river Oder and its tributaries reached several municipalities in the region of Lower Silesia on the night of September 14/15.

Embankments gave way, inundating several municipalities. Thousands of people were left without power and were cut off from the outside world. Some had to be evacuated; others airlifted.

Several mayors in the region complained that warnings about the threat of flooding had come either too late or not at all.

As the water level dropped, it became clear that nine people had lost their lives and one was missing.

Opposition seizes the opportunity to attack Tusk

The national-conservative opposition led by Jaroslaw Kaczynski, leader of the PiS party, immediately went on the attack.

Tusk had certainly supplied them with enough ammunition. After a crisis meeting in Wroclaw on September 13, the day before the flood struck, he told journalists that the weather forecasts were "not overly alarming" and spoke only of the possibility of "local flooding."

"There is no reason to panic, but there is a reason to be fully mobilized," he said. Critics have often chosen to ignore the second part of his sentence.

PiS says that with these words, the prime minister trivialized the flood threat even though the opposition party itself chose to organize a demonstration outside the Justice Ministry in Warsaw that weekend instead of helping flood victims.

Did Tusk trivialize the flood threat?

"Unfortunately, the government failed," Kaczynski said on September 22 in an interview with the Polish news agency PAP, adding that people who had fought for their homes and towns had been "left to their own devices."

According to Kaczynski, it was chaos, and Poland is being ruled by "amateurs or dilettantes."

The pro-opposition Gazeta Polska weekly magazine took a similar line, running the headline "The state has collapsed; Tusk's flood disaster."

The government showed "arrogance and lacked a sense of responsibility," said chairman of the PiS parliamentary party, Mariusz Blaszczak.

The verbal attacks continued in the Sejm, the Polish parliament, last Friday. After Tusk read out a government declaration on the situation in the flooded regions, former PM Mateusz Morawiecki said that "the government has not passed the test."

According to Morawiecki, the European Commission warned of heavy rainfall as early as September 10. "But the government did nothing," he said.

Morawiecki then returned to what Tusk had said on September 13, describing it as "words of shame."

"These words were not just a common mistake. These words, which may have cost people their lives, their health and certainly the loss of their property, meant that rescue services, local authorities and people were not mobilized," he said.

Crisis meetings live on television

To minimize the damage caused by his ill-considered words, Tusk took an unusual step, allowing the meetings of the crisis team, which met twice a day, to be broadcast live on television for hours at a time. Some civil servants and local politicians were reprimanded live on camera.

This method of communicating was not to everyone's liking. It reminded some people of an instance where Russian President Vladimir Putin rebuked a senior official during a televised meeting.

The impact of the flood has been devastating. The "state of natural disaster," which was declared on September 20 for the first time in Polish history, covered 750 municipalities and 2.4 million people.

Some 57,000 people were directly affected by the flood. At least 11,500 homes were damaged.

Swift support for Polish flood victims

Tusk knows that his political fate depends on the ability of his government to get a swift grip on flood recovery.

By the end of last week, the Polish government had released €145 million ($161 million) in aid for those affected by the disaster. But this is just the beginning. The government has said that together with the funds pledged by the EU, a total €5.36 billion will be made available for reconstruction and recovery.

Special legislation has been prepared so that regulations can be changed to ensure that victims access assistance faster and without the usual bureaucratic hurdles.

Tusk ally put in charge of recovery

To ensure that nothing goes wrong, Tusk has put Marcin Kierwinski, one of his closest allies, in charge of flood recovery, giving him the rank of minister.

Kierwinski, who has already held a ministerial post, gave up his mandate as a member of the European Parliament, which he only took up in June, to take on the job.

Even President Andrzej Duda, a staunch opponent of the government, was impressed by Kierwinski's decision. "In the name of the Polish Republic, I am grateful to you. Not everyone would be willing to do this. (...) You have made a statesmanlike decision," said Duda at Kierwinski's appointment ceremony.

Kierwinski has no time to lose. Not only is there a lot to be done in terms of flood recovery, but Poland is due to elect a new president next summer. After two terms in office, Duda can no longer run for office.

The government hopes that Duda will be succeeded by a liberal candidate who would no longer block government decisions, as the sitting president does.

However, if the post-flood recovery and reconstruction fails or falters, the chances of a conservative candidate winning the election would be improved and Tusk's hopes and plans dashed.

This article was originally published in German.