Polish Interior and Administration Minister Tomasz Siemoniak is calling on local governments to prioritize building bomb shelters instead of public amenities like swimming pools.
Speaking at the InfoSecurity24Day conference, Siemoniak posed a pointed question: “Maybe it’s better to have a shelter instead of a swimming pool?” His remarks come as Poland steps up its civil defence efforts amid growing regional security concerns, Caliber.Az reports citing Polish media.
While acknowledging that such decisions ultimately rest with local authorities, Siemoniak emphasized that Poland’s newly established Security and Defence Fund offers a strong financial mechanism to support the construction of protective infrastructure.
Under a new law on civil protection and defence, which came into force on January 1, 2025, Poland has introduced a wide range of reforms. These include mandatory civil defence training for officials, updated rules for managing shelters, and a shift in coordination responsibilities to the Interior Ministry.
The law is heavily inspired by civil protection models in Nordic countries such as Sweden and Finland.
A government survey released last year revealed a significant gap in shelter capacity: only 300,000 people could be accommodated in designated bomb shelters in a country of 38 million. However, broader secure facilities — including metro stations and tunnels — could potentially house up to 48 million in an emergency.
To address these shortcomings, Warsaw approved $30 million in March 2024 to be spent over the next two to three years on shelters and other security upgrades.
By Nazrin Sadigova
Source: caliber.az
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