Even though talks on the accession to NATO are mostly politically orientated, there are a significant number of economic reasons why NATO is good for countries, explain professionals familiar with the matter.
Professor at the Faculty of Political Science in Sarajevo, Nerzuk Curak, says that key investments from the transatlantic world come to NATO member countries because they guarantee the security of investments. Namely, a number of Eastern European countries after joining NATO managed to attract an incredible amount of investments after transforming their governing to the principles of Western democracy.
The Minister of Defense of Croatia and former ambassador to NATO, Davor Bozinovic, stated that when Croatia joined NATO it was a time of an unprecedented economic crisis. He added that in a crisis the first to suffer are the defense budgets, as was the case with Croatia.
However within NATO and the EU there are multinational initiatives, Smart Defense and Polling and Sharing. Namely, unnecessary costs are avoided in the manufacture of military equipment and weapons, said Bozinovic adding that member states and their companies integrate, connect and create clusters in order to meet the markets demands.
The military industry is not only the production of uniforms, but also new technologies, explained Bozinovic, adding that Croatia is currently looking to take part in these projects.
According to available data, the degree of capacity utilization in this industry in B&H is only 10%, whereas prior to the war this industry employed 40, 000 people and its level of production amounted to 2.4 million KM.
Experts believe that this branch could be revived, especially if B&H joins NATO.
