Regional Development and EU Funds Minister Marko Pavic said on Thursday in Brussels that he was expecting a compromise between EU state members on the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) which could be be acceptable to Croatia and that the agreement would be reached on time so there would be no delay in contracting new projects.

Minister Pavic attended a conference on including citizens and the civil society in the cohesion policy, organised by the European Commission. The conference was also attended by European Commission Vice-president for Demography and Democracy Dubravka Suica.

The 2021-27 Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) is the most important topic occupying the EU at the moment. European Council President Charles Michel has called an extraordinary summit for February 20 to try to reach an agreement. The European Commission has proposed that the budget should amount to 1.11% of gross national income (GNI), net contributor countries are seeking to limit it to 1% of the GNI, while the European Parliament is seeking 1.3% of the GNI. In actuality, these differences amount to several hundreds of billions of euro.

Minister Pavic said that it was extremely important for Croatia to retain the same level of cohesion funds as in the 2014-20 MFF. He underscored that cohesion was very important to us since Croatia,as a new member state, had just started using the European funds.

Pavic added that there was less money due to the UK, which had been a large net contributor, leaving the EU, but that this should not affect the cohesion funds, especially when it comes to Croatia’s envelope. He underscored that projects on research and development, as well as those on green policy, would be in the focus of the new national development strategy.

Vice-President Suica also expressed hope that a compromise on the MFF would be reached soon.