Luxembourg, 28/02/2000 (Agence Europe) - The European Investment Bank has granted a EUR 20 million loan to the "Association of Communes for Ecology" of Zywiec, in Southern Poland. This is the first time that a municipal association of this type has been formed in Poland, says the EIB in a press release. The loan will finance the modernisation of drainage systems and the treatment of waste water, to bring them up to national and Community environmental standards. According to the EIB Vice-President, Wolfgang Roth, the work should improve "the life quality for a population of some 200,000 in Zywiec and in a number of villages along the homonymous lake and along the Vistula tributaries".