Q: The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development [EBRD] annual meeting is being held in Sarajevo. How important is the western Balkans in terms of EBRD coverage?
A: It is enormously important. If you just look at Bosnia-Herzegovina [of which Sarajevo is the capital], we’ve invested something like €2.2bn over the years. [This translates into] 155 projects, just in one quite small country. If you look at the western Balkans as a whole, it’s about €11.5bn over the years and in 2018 a record €1.1bn in the region. [So the western Balkans is] very important for the EBRD but also for Europe, because this is a region that has quite clearly chosen EU [membership] as its destination of choice.
