Since joining the EU in 2013 to date, Croatia has drawn €8.51 billion from its structural and investment funds, which is 79.3 percent of the money allocated to Croatia, and its balance of payments with the EU is now overall about €9bn in the green, over the past nine years or so, the state-run news platform Hina reported on Thursday, citing data from the Ministry of Regional Development and EU Funds, which regularly issues reports tracking Croatia's performance in using up EU funding.

The head of the ministry, Natasa Tramisak, “presented a report on the state of utilization of ESI funds in Croatia at a government session on Thursday, and the government adopted the report,” Hina relayed to the local media.

According to the ministry, as quoted by Hina, a total of €10.73 billion was made available to Croatia from ESIF for the 2014-20 period, and by 17 November, 2022, projects worth €13.75 billion, or 128.11 percent of the allocated funds, were contracted.

Hina did not explain what happened in 2020, after the period expired. “In total, €8.51 billion, or 79.26 percent of the allocated funds, was paid, and €6.92 billion, or 64.52 percent of the allocated funds, was certified,” Hina said, without clarifying.

“If €763.17m from REACT EU and €597.56m from the Rural Development Program are added to the original allocation of ESI funds in 2014-20 in the amount of €10.73bn, the total allocation until 2023 is €12.09bn,” Hina said, without clarifying.

The balance between funds paid from the EU budget to Croatia and funds paid by Croatia into the EU budget from 2013 to November 2022 now amounts to 56.90 billion kuna (€7.5 billion) in favor of Croatia.

If the advance payments from the National Recovery and Resilience Plan scheme are added to this, Croatia has so far received 68.30 billion kuna (€9 billion) more from the EU budget than it paid into it, Hina quoted the ministry’s press release as saying.