Applications for the Hungarian government’s business development scheme in Bosnia and Herzegovina can be submitted from Wednesday on, Levente Magyar, deputy minister of foreign affairs and trade, said in Gradiška, in northern Bosnia, on Tuesday.
Over the past decades Europe “has deluded itself with the reassuring belief that the 20th-century conflicts are over”, he said, adding that the outbreak of war in Ukraine this year proved that this theory was false. “The war has made it clear that some European regions still carry wounds that can reopen at any time and in any form,” Magyar said.
The Hungarian government recognised this situation some years ago and started to establish closer links with areas “whose security may have a fundamental impact on Hungary’s situation”, he said. One region in question was Bosnia and Herzegovina, specifically Republika Srpska, Bosnia’s autonomous Serb Republic, Magyar said. This is why the Hungarian government accepted the request of Banja Luka leaders to start a business development scheme, similar to the ones launched in neighbouring regions inhabited by ethnic Hungarian minorities, he said. The bids will be evaluated in the weeks to come and the funds to be used for the purchase of Hungarian farm machinery disbursed to farmers in Bosnia in the coming months, he said. The scheme will therefore promote Hungarian exports as well, Magyar said.
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