Macedonia, Bosnia, EU funds' biggest beneficiaries

The meeting, which is in the course of the Berlin initiative, approved around 180m euros in grants to countries in the region. But not all benefited from this money.

According to official documents published by the European Commission, for 2019, Brussels has chosen to finance eight investment projects in the region. The biggest beneficiaries of the European Union's free funds are Bosnia and Macedonia.

For Bosnia, the European Union approved 94.7m euros in grants for three major investment projects in 2019. They are the 5th corridor, the Popricse Memilla highway and Rudanka Putnikovo.

Northern Macedonia will benefit 42m euros free from the EU for the construction of the Skopje-Blace highway, railway with Serbia and the gas pipeline knot with Greece.

Kosovo and Serbia benefited from 26.8m euros and 12.8m euros, respectively. In Kosovo, Brussels will finance the national railway network, while in Serbia the money will go to the 400kbrenovac-Bajina Basta line.

In the 5 Western Balkan countries aspiring to membership in the European Union, Albania was the only one who did not benefit any fund from the free EU money, where the cause has been a lack of projects even this time.

The Berlin Process is an initiative of several European Union countries, led by Germany to support financially with investment projects in transport and energy the aspiring countries for Western Balkan membership.

Since 2015, when this initiative was launched, the European Union has been funding 880m euros in grants for 6 Western Balkan countries, and Albania results in the smallest beneficiary of only 78.2m euros.