Croatia withdrew €8.95 billion from the European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF) by the end of 2022, which is 83.4% of the allocated funds, and the country ran €9.9 billion surplus in the payments from and into the EU budget, the Ministry of Regional Development and EU Funds said on Thursday.

Regional Development and EU Funds Minister Natasa Tramisak presented the report on Croatia’s absorption of ESI funds at the cabinet meeting.

As the ministry noted, a total of €10.73 billion was available to Croatia from ESIF for the period 2014-2020. By the end of 2022, projects worth €13.79 billion, or 128.5% of the allocated funds, had been contracted.

A total of €8.95 billion, or 83.38% of the allocated funds, were paid out and €7.6 billion or 70.9% of the allocated funds were certified.

If €864.23 million from REACT EU and €597.56 million are added from the Rural Development Program to the original allocation of ESI funds in 2014 – 2020 amounting to €10.73 billion, the total allocation until 2023 is €12.19 billion.

In the period from 2013 to the end of 2022, the difference between funds paid from the EU budget to Croatia’s budget and funds paid from the budget to the EU budget amounts to €9.92 billion in favour of Croatia’s budget, according to the Ministry’s press release.

Of that amount €7.35 billion was from ESI funds, €2.22 billion was from the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NPOO) and €350 million from other EU sources.

The Ministry also noted that €734 million will be paid into the state budget from the EU in the first few days of January.