Bosnia and Herzegovina received 140.5 million euros in non-repayable European money. That same day, Brussels told it that by the end of the year it risks losing 373 million. That is six times more than what it just secured. If there is a sharper picture of how the Balkans treat European funds, it would be hard to invent one.

The money comes through the Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance for 2025-2027, after the decision was published in the Official Journal and ratification was finally completed. It is intended for reforms and investments - that is the official phrasing. Luigi Soreca, head of the EU Delegation in Sarajevo, praised that stage, and then said a sentence worth more than the entire sum.

The only country in the region on zero euros

Bosnia and Herzegovina is, as Soreca stated, the only Western Balkans partner that has still not received a single euro from the Reform and Growth Facility. Not one. This is not a country the EU has punished, nor some new condition invented in Brussels. The mechanism stands open, it is worth a billion euros in grants and favourable loans, and the condition is the same for everyone: prepare concrete projects and submit them.

Bosnia has submitted none. The reason is not a lack of needs, but internal political blockades - the same sentence every citizen in the region has been hearing for decades and long ago stopped reacting to. The European Commission has already withheld 108 million euros, and it plans to redistribute the unactivated funds to the other five Western Balkans countries that have shown commitment to reform.

Who pays the price of the blockade

Here is the part that rarely makes it into political statements. Those 373 million are not lost into thin air - they go to the neighbours. Redistribution is not a punishment but a mechanism: whoever works gets more. Whoever does not work watches their share cross the border.

For a citizen in Tuzla or Banja Luka this is not an abstraction. These are roads that will not be built, water systems that will not be renewed, jobs that will not exist - while the political structures maintaining the blockade stay exactly where they are. Will anyone answer for a lost billion? The question sounds naive precisely because we all know the answer.