Due to a stronger focus on the importance of policies and the ability of proposed projects, as well as due to weaknesses in administrative capacities and the lack of efficiency of a coordination mechanism between different levels of government, Bosnia and Herzegovina is currently missing opportunities to fully use the European Union’s funding programs, EU Delegation in BiH assessed in an interview with FENA and called on the local authorities to resolve these weaknesses for the benefit of BiH citizens.
They stated that the greatest support and financial assistance to Bosnia and Herzegovina comes from the European Union and its member states.
“There is a large number of programs and financial instruments that BiH uses, the most comprehensive of which is the Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance (IPA). In the period from 2007 to 2020, IPA I and IPA II funds were implemented in BiH in the amount of 1.1 billion euros in grants, with the fact that this amount refers only to IPA funds for BiH”, the Delegation said in response to a question about how much funds BiH withdrew from the EU and investment funds.
They also reminded that for the period from 2021 to 2027, through the new IPA III program, around 14.2 billion euros of support is provided to candidate countries and potential candidates in key political, institutional, social and economic reforms.
The EU Delegation notes that the novelty in the new financial framework is that there is no pre-allocated annual amount for beneficiary countries, but the allocation of funds is based on the importance of policies and capability of projects proposed by the beneficiary country on an annual basis, as well as the balance between results and fair share.
They remind that BiH also benefits from numerous regional programs, as well as programs for the entire European continent, such as Horizon 2020, Creative Europe, Erasmus+ and other EU programs.
At the same time, when it comes to regional programs, the most important is the Western Balkans Investment Framework (WBIF).
