Croatia absorbed €7.83 billion from the European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF) from 2013 until the end of June 2022, almost 73% of the allocated funds from EU funds, while the state budget ran a surplus of over 63 billion kuna (€8.4bn), the Ministry of Regional Development and EU Funds said on Thursday.

Minister Nataša Tramišak presented a report on the absorption of ESIF funds at the cabinet meeting on Thursday, which was then adopted, according to the press release.

The Ministry notedd that a total of €10.73 billion, or 81.56 billion kuna, was available to Croatia from the ESIF for the period 2014-2020.

By 30 June this year, projects worth €13.54 billion  (102.88 billion kuna), or 126.15% of the allocated funds, were contracted.

A total of €7.83 billion (59.49 billion kuna), or 72.95% of the allocated funds, were paid out, and €6.25 billion (47.5 billion kuna), or 58.24%percent of the allocated funds, were certified.

If €763.17 million from REACT EU and €597.56 million from the Rural Development Program are added to the original ESI 2014-2020 allocation of 10.73 billion kuna, the total allocation until 2023 is €12.09 billion.

In the period from 2013 to 30 June this year, the difference between funds paid from the EU budget into the Croatian budget and funds paid from the Croatian budget into the EU budget amounts to 57.12 billion kuna in favour of the Croatian budget, which includes the advance paid for the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NPOO), which means that Croatia has a surplus of 63.25 billion kuna, according to the Ministry.