Зошто е важно ЕУ постепено да ги отвори кохезионите фондови на Западен Балкан во период на процесот на интеграција?

Abstract

Within the European Union (EU) framework, income convergence is re- garded as a fundamental economic mechanism and an explicit objective. The Cohesion funds, integral to the EU‘s Cohesion Policy, has been used in con- junction with other EU Structural Funds to assist post-transitional EU member countries in achieving significant income convergence with the EU average. A similar path is envisaged for the Western Balkan countries, although at present their integration appears to be on a much slower trajectory. It‘s optimistically projected that they may become EU members in the forthcoming decade. Con- currently, EU member countries from this region, including Croatia, Bulgaria, and Romania, are currently receiving and will continue to receive substantial financing from the European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF) in the next decade. As an illustration, they are slated to receive billions of euros in grants solely for the purpose of economic decarbonization. In contrast, the Western Balkan countries engaged in the EU integration process cannot access the EU Cohesion funds and are limited to using only the IPA funds. However, the rel- ative size of the IPA funds the Western Balkans receive is much smaller when compared to the ESIF. A central thesis of this paper, therefore, is that this dis- parity will bolster the competitiveness of the EU member economies from this region against the Western Balkan economies. Consequently, this may result in divergence, rather than convergence, of the Western Balkan economies with the economies of the region that are EU members. This paper primarily recommends that the EU should gradually start to make Cohesion Funds available to the Western Balkan countries during the integration process.