The European Investment Bank is lending a total of EUR 200 million for urban renewal and energy-efficient social housing throughout Poland. The 25 years loan to State-owned BGK (Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowego) will help towards renovating housing stock showing evidence of severe deferred maintenance and towards constructing new energy efficient rental housing in brown-field locations included in urban renewal areas. Investments will be mainly concentrated in the urban areas with the largest housing deficits. 

Commenting on the loan EIB Vice-President Wolfgang Roth said in Warsaw : 'Our loan for urban renewal and social housing will enhance the quality of the urban environment through the rehabilitation of low-cost rental social housing and the construction of energy efficient new apartment blocks in derelict urban areas; building and modernising homes is important as it should lead to a better quality of life for many Poles living in the country's more densely populated areas and will help improve and protect the environment. It will furthermore allow the Polish Housing Fund to anticipate and ease problems expected in the coming years and stemming from a growing work-related mobility.' 

The EIB is also granting EUR 80 million, for 20 years, to the State for the financing of the DROGOWA TRASA SREDNICOWA, an urban expressway Upper Silesia. The new loan follows EUR 100 million which were granted in 1998. 

Since 1990 the EIB lent well over 5 billion EUR to projects in Poland, more than in any other EU candidate country. Over 1 billion went to Trans-European road and rail networks (TENs), with emphasis on upgrading major international road and railway axes. Telecommunications, gas and larger industry schemes also attracted substantial loans from the EIB. Small and medium-scale industrial investments as well as smaller energy or infrastructure projects are being furthered through credit lines (global loans) to commercial banks established in Poland. The EIB also helped rebuild infrastructure damaged during the 1997 Odra and 2001 Vistula floods.

Since 1990, the EIB has lent over EUR 17 billion to projects in the ten Central European EU applicants: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Romania and Bulgaria.