Addressing a round table discussion on EU funds, which was held in the Croatian parliament, Pusic said that everything which Croatia missed to use from those funds could be viewed as "direct loss".
The effects of the use of EU funds can be seen the best at a local level where they can facilitate better living conditions, Pusic said speaking of financial assistance in building culture centres, pre-school facilities, railways, public utilities etc.
Parliament Speaker Luka Bebic said Croatia would miss no chance for using those funds for "subjective reasons".
Croatia has so far had access to various pre-accession funds such as CARDS, PHARE, ISPA, SAPARD and IPA. Upon its admission to the Union, Croatia will be able to draw funds from Structural and Cohesion Funds.
The experience with pre-accession funds will be valuable when you start using funds from the Cohesion Fund, said the EU Ambassador to Croatia, Paul Vandoren.
He called for preparing mature projects and for setting up capacities for their implementation as well as for making the private sector ready to use EU funds.
In 2012-2013, EUR 2.2 billion will be made available to Croatia in the first two years of its EU membership.
This means that if Croatia becomes an EU member in 2012, it will have little time and therefore it is recommended to prepare mature projects, according to Vandoren.
The topic of funds is the best example to show citizens benefits from EU membership, he said pointing out to the importance of a communication strategy.
I am encouraged with the work of your government in recent months, the ambassador said.