Ensure Adequate Budget for the Military Alongside the Reform Program

(Patria) - The Center for Security Studies welcomes the step forward achieved by the partners in government at the state level through the adoption of the Reform Program for 2023 and its submission to NATO Headquarters in Brussels.

Despite the significant delay in fulfilling the agreed obligations arising from the NATO Membership Action Plan (MAP), in which BiH has been fully participating since December 2018, they hope that this consensus will also mean accelerating further steps towards full membership.

"In this context, we also positively assess the partial fulfillment of obligations towards opening EU accession negotiations, through the adoption of the Draft Law on Personal Data Protection and Border Control.

For this political agreement on the continuation of BiH's path towards NATO to be credible, political leaders will have to make additional efforts to ensure adequate financial resources for the functionality and efficiency of the Ministry of Defense of BiH, i.e., the Armed Forces of BiH.

Current allocations for the military are, to put it mildly, at a level of totally inadequate consideration of events and changes in the environment and globally. The allocations for BiH's military needs are probably among the smallest percentage-wise in the world.

An additional burden is the fact that the planned budget is structured so that over 80% is allocated for salaries and employee benefits, while modernization and equipping are left mainly to donations from friendly countries.

Therefore, we appeal to those responsible that, when considering the budget for 2025, they plan to allocate more significant funds for the needs of the Armed Forces of BiH, i.e., investment in their equipping and modernization, in order to achieve interoperability with NATO member countries in this area as well. It is important to recall that recently the NATO Secretary General, Mr. Mark Rutte, in his first official address, requested an increase in defense spending by member countries to 3% of GDP as an imperative for the future survival of NATO.

In the case of BiH, within the existing GDP (currently around 50 billion BAM), this would mean an allocation of about 1.5 billion BAM in the coming period, or currently one billion BAM, if we were to align with all European countries that have so far managed to raise their defense spending to 2% of GDP, as stipulated by the 2014 decision.

It is important to note that the military budget is currently around 390 million BAM, which represents very modest allocations of approximately 0.8% of GDP and greatly deviates from the efforts of other NATO members, as well as the current challenges and threats of the modern security and geopolitical environment.

BiH will probably not be able to reach these amounts under the existing socio-economic circumstances, but for credible progress towards NATO membership, it must demonstrate readiness to follow such a commitment and increase allocations for military forces through concrete steps. This will certainly represent a significant challenge for the authorities, which can certainly be seen in the example of the recent fall of the government of the Federal Republic of Germany, but it is the only way to demonstrate commitment and determination to approach collective defense and security systems.

In all of this, the poor execution of the budget of the Ministry of Defense of BiH is unacceptable, as in recent years it has failed to adequately spend the allocated budget funds, which should be the subject of special analysis and control by the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH. The Presidency of BiH should certainly take its place in these processes with its authority, as it is, among other things, the authorized proposer of the Draft Budget of the Institutions of BiH, but also the supreme civilian commander of the armed forces, who must take care of the readiness and operational capability of the forces under its command," stated the CSS.