Skopje, 17 August 2022 (MIA) – We are making better use of EU funds, but there is still room for improvement and we will continue. At the beginning of 2023 there will be a new investment offensive financed with European money, said Deputy Prime Minister for European Affairs, Bojan Marichikj at a press conference Wednesday. Marichikj said that North Macedonia is participating in the current call for investment grants with three new projects amounting to around EUR 53 million, two of which are projects in the field of energy – namely the rehabilitation of six hydropower plants and construction of a wind park in Bogdanci, and the other one is in the field of environmental protection – construction of regional centers for solid waste in Polog, Pelagonia, Vardar, the Southwest and Southeast regions. “We are working on implementing the country’s investment agenda and applying for large strategic projects which are an investment in the future of our children. The strategic priorities from the economic investment plan for the Western Balkans, promoted in October 2020, were financed through the Western Balkans Investment Framework. Back then, European Commissioner Varhelyi announced 9 billion euros for the 2021-2027 period, investments that should attract an additional 20 billion euro in loans from international financial institutions,” said Marichikj. North Macedonia, he said, participated in all 28 calls for technical support announced so far and in all seven investment grant calls, after the approval of 43 grants in the amount of 2.6 billion euro for a total value of investment of 421.4 million euro, supplemented by loans of around 600 million euro. “We are nearing almost 230 euro per capita which puts North Macedonia in second place in terms of use of EU funds from the Western Balkans investment fund, right after Montenegro. At the end of July 2022, the EU approved the first projects for the implementation of the Western Balkans economic investment plan. We applied with four investment projects and received support for each of them in the amount of 225.6 million euros,” said Marichikj. The projects approved in the last call are as follows: 149.2 million-euro grant for the construction of the railway between North Macedonia and Bulgaria; 1.6 million-euro for procurement of equipment for the Oslomej 1 Photovoltaic Plant; 5-million-euro for procurement of equipment for the Oslomej 2 Photovoltaic Plant and Bitola, as well as a grant of EUR 69.8 million for the construction of a sewage treatment plant in Skopje. The Deputy PM added that as part of the sixth call for infrastructure grants, 1.1 billion-euro worth of grants have been approved for all six countries of the region, with projects from North Macedonia participating with 20.5 percent of the approved amount. Additionally, Marichikj announced that work will be done on the energy efficiency of state-owned student dormitories in cooperation with the German Development Bank KfW. Regarding IPA 3, which is a new EU concept when it comes to pre-accession support of Western Balkan countries, the Secretariat for European Affairs in July 2022 submitted the first revised draft strategic response to the European Commission in line with the new IPA 3 programming. ad/ba/