Croatia funding projects for Croats in BiH with BiH money!?

State Secretary of the Central State Office for Croats outside the Republic of Croatia Zvonko Milas signed contracts on Friday in Vitez with 105 recipients of support for projects of Croats in BiH from the Budget of Croatia worth 6 million KM. This involves financing cultural, educational, scientific, health, and other programs and projects of interest to the Croatian people in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Milas called it a message of unity and support for the purpose of survival.

Numerous analysts have been warning for years about the harmfulness of Croatian policy towards BiH, as it shows that even the highest officials of the neighboring country label BiH as a dysfunctional state.

- Croatia does not see BiH as a state where citizens live, but as a place where Bosniaks, Serbs, and Croats live. Croatia's policy always and exclusively sides with parties with a Croatian prefix in BiH – analyst Adnan Huskić stated earlier.

Such a policy also harms BiH Croats, as evidenced by their mass departure from BiH. The best proof of this is the registration of voters from outside BiH to vote in the General Elections. The largest number of applications came from Croatia.

Although at first glance there is nothing controversial in allocating money for projects of BiH Croats in BiH, it is still worth recalling everything that Croatia owes BiH. Therefore, the logical question arises: whose money is Croatia giving to BiH Croats?

Nearly three decades after the breakup of Yugoslavia, Croatia has not returned properties to Bosnia and Herzegovina that belonged to it upon the dissolution of the common state, while BiH has settled those obligations towards the Croatian state. It is estimated that properties alone of BiH in Croatia are worth several hundred million euros. Mostly, these are hotels and buildings of BiH companies destroyed by war.

Croatia is blocking Bosnia and Herzegovina's rights to the Port of Šibenik, Energopetrol's gas stations in Croatia have disappeared under unclear circumstances, while Croatia's INA has suspiciously acquired the oil giant Energopetrol in BiH.

The construction of the Buško Jezero accumulation lake was jointly carried out in the seventies of the last century by the then authorities of Croatia and BiH, with the Hydroelectric Power Plant Orlovac being built in a municipality in Croatia, while the accumulation was built in BiH, in the area of the municipalities of Tomislavgrad and Livno. Hrvatska elektroprivreda (HEP) has been extracting millions for years for electricity production through HE Orlovac, while the municipalities of Tomislavgrad and Livno in BiH receive only crumbs from this largest artificial lake in Europe.

Furthermore, the Croatian retail chain Konzum has been siphoning hundreds of millions of KM from BiH for years. The question is whether the opposite could also be the case. BiH does not have a single retail chain in Croatia. BiH's exports to Croatia are also far lower than imports from that country.

If we add to this the interference in the internal affairs of BiH by the highest levels of Croatia, such as arrangements, political situations, and compromising statements about BiH in the world, it seems that we have far more damage than benefit from our immediate neighbor.