The meeting of delegations of Armed Forces of BiH and Croatia was held yesterday. Cooperation between these two countries in the military sector was emphasized, as well as the support of Croatia on the path of BiH towards NATO.
This was also a great opportunity to compare how much regional countries spend on their armed forces in comparison to our country. For the beginning, Croatia spends four times more than BiH. And while Croatia and Serbia are planning a large part of their budgets for modernization of their military forces, BiH spends a total of 98 % of the military budget on salaries of its employees.
The visit of the military delegation from Croatia represents a part of the Plan of Bilateral Cooperation between Croatia and BiH. That cooperation is very important, especially since Croatia is already part of NATO Alliance since 2008, while BiH is still waiting to get the green light for activation of the MAP.
Many things were already said about the blockage of BH path to NATO, considering different views from Banja Luka and Sarajevo regarding registration of military assets. Meanwhile, militaries of neighboring countries are investing large amounts of money in development and modernization.
That can be seen from the official data. BiH invests a total of 290 million BAM in the Armed Forces on an annual basis, of which 98 % goes to salaries of employees.
According to recently adopted Review of Defense, the army of BiH has a total of 9.200 members. If we compare that with the army of Serbia, we get the following data: annual military budget of Serbia amounts to 950 million BAM, and less than 74 million goes on salaries. Military of Serbia, according to data from the White book, has 28.000 soldiers. They also invest in military aircraft.
At the same time, Croatia spends 100 million BAM on its army annually, which is four times more in comparison to BiH. However, there is one difference, Croatia spends only 60 % on salaries, in comparison to 98 % in BiH. Croatian army has almost 15.000 members.
(Source: N1)
