Is Bosnia and Herzegovina really on the verge of losing almost one billion euros from the European Growth Plan, or is it a false narrative, as BiH Finance Minister Srđan Amidžić claims? While new warnings are coming from Brussels that there is no money without reforms, domestic politicians are shifting the responsibility to each other.
Almost a billion euros for Bosnia and Herzegovina or a lost opportunity? New warning from the European Union – time is running out. But also the message – without reforms there is no money.
“Bosnia and Herzegovina needs to sign the Loan Agreement and the Agreement on the Instrument for Reforms and Growth, and fulfill the reform steps foreseen in the Reform Agenda. If it does not do so, it risks losing almost one billion euros allocated to it as part of the Growth Plan,” stated the Delegation of the European Union in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Finance Minister Srđan Amidžić claims that the story about the loss of money is not true.
“We have a false narrative that we lost 980 million euros. That is a lie,” says Amidžić.
But experts remind that it is not about expensive borrowing, but about financing that Bosnia and Herzegovina can hardly get on the market.
“To say that these are unfavorable loans is very irresponsible for someone who borrows on stock exchanges and in commercial banks. These are loans that are considered favorable, which have lower interest rates. They have a very long grace period, which means that we will start paying for some of them only in 2034,” claims the editor-in-chief of the Association of Citizens “Why not” Biljana Livančić-Milić.
The money is intended for roads, railways, digitization, energy and education. However, Bosnia and Herzegovina cannot use it yet because it has not even completed the basic work.
“It is certain that the Ministry of Finance and Treasury of Bosnia and Herzegovina is the institution where the process has been stopped for the time being, we can say blocked,” points out Edo Kanlić, representative of the Initiative for Monitoring European Integration of BiH.
Even earlier, the European Commission reduced the first tranche by more than 108 million euros to our country, and now the warnings are becoming even more serious.
“We broke through all the deadlines. What arrived, a warning from the European Commission and from the commissioner for enlargement, was that we will lose all the money if we don’t move,” said BiH Minister of Communications and Transport Edin Forto.
The opposition in Republika Srpska claims that the story is practically over, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, along with Kosovo, remains the only country without this money.
“It is unnecessary to talk about the growth plan. I am sure that we will never receive these funds because we are late in everything”, says Želimir Nešković, a delegate in the Club of Serbs in the House of Peoples of the BiH Parliamentary Assembly.
There is no justification for blockades, say HDZ.
“These are not insignificant funds, they are significant funds and I believe that those who really love their homeland Bosnia and Herzegovina and want Bosnia and Herzegovina in the European Union, have no reason to block it,” points out Marina Pendeš, a delegate in the Club of Croats in the House of Peoples of the PSBiH.
While the region is already using funds from the Growth Plan, Bosnia and Herzegovina is still dealing with internal political disputes.
“We have never fulfilled those prerequisites and it is very unlikely that we will fulfill them in the foreseeable future. And the Growth Plan is a logical sequence of such a policy in which the government is understood and behaves as a prey, and not as something that will make life better for the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina,” says journalist Sead Numanović.
In Brussels, they are no longer looking for new promises, but concrete moves. Instead, local authorities continue to debate who is to blame and who is telling the truth. The question remains why Bosnia and Herzegovina has not even completed the first step two years after the approval of the Growth Plan.
