The CBBH Representatives at Expert Meeting of the EC and Candidate Countries for Membership

Representative of the Central Bank of Bosnia and Herzegovina (CBBH), Belma Čolaković, Ph.D, participated in expert meeting on the spring round of medium-term macroeconomic projections of the European Commission (EC) for the candidate countries. The meeting was held in Brussels.

Expert meetings on macroeconomic projections are regular and held twice a year, at the invitation of the EC for representatives of institutions of the candidate countries for membership, the central banks and the ministries of finance as a rule. In case of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the meetings are attended by the representatives of the CBBH and BH Directorate for Economic Planning. The EC projections for the candidate countries and the projections of the candidate countries themselves are in line, and published in May and November.

The expert meetings are very important from several aspects. As communication and exchange of information is open, at technical level, and two-way, the candidate countries for membership are enabled to communicate with the EC significant trends or events, and their expected effects on the candidate countries’ economies. In this way, it is ensured that both sides share the same information on macroeconomic trends in the candidate countries, and then the expected effects are discussed. On the other hand, during multilateral meetings, the EC shares its views on global trends, their expected effects on the European Union (EU) economy, and also the expectations related to medium-term trends and the related risks, resulting in projections of the EU economic activity. This is important information for all candidate countries, as the EU's demand for domestic products is a significant generator of economic activity. Such meetings actually form the basis for well-argued exchange of views and expectations related to the candidate countries’ economies, which is also important from the aspect of the subsequent evaluation of the EC of some of the formal documents submitted to the EU by the country within the EU integration process.  

The first meeting in 2025 was particularly important, due to the dramatic increase of uncertainty at the global level, but also within the domestic macroeconomic space. Regarding global trends, the increasingly certain full trade war is standing out, its consequences, at the moment, being still unforeseeable. In case of expected trends in the EU, some of the factors that will certainly affect the revision of earlier published macroeconomic projections for the EU, in addition to the effect of the US tariffs, include the removal of restrictions on the public debt of Germany, and the announced significantly higher spending on public infrastructure and defence among the EU member states. Regarding BH, the spiral between wages and inflation is becoming stronger, and the latest changes related to the labour market are unprecedented, making the calibration of the expected effects in the projection horizon more difficult. In addition, there are indications of a possible weakening of the domestic economy competitiveness. For now, it is almost certain that both the EC and the CBBH will revise their projections for BH with the spring round of macroeconomic projections. Compared to the autumn round of projections from 2024, among other things, inflation is expected to be revised upwards and economic activity to be revised downwards.  

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