With the accession of the Republic of Croatia to the European Union, new opportunities for project financing have opened up. Five funds are available to Member States: the Cohesion Fund, the European Regional Development Fund, the European Social Fund, the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development and the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund. For the period 2021-2027 the establishment of new funds and certain significant changes in the conditions of financing are envisaged, such as the reduction of the maximum financing rate from 85% to 70% for less developed members. Just planning and preparing a project, depending on the size and goals, can be very complex. Once a project is approved, project management remains, which is also a separate and complex area. The Republic of Croatia makes very poor use of opportunities from European funds and is among the worst members of the European Union in terms of the use of funds. The problem is not so much in the project applicants, but in the disbursement of funds. Namely, a very high percentage of approved funds for individual projects has not yet been paid to beneficiaries. In the last two years, a slight progress has been made on this issue, but a major omission was made in 2021, when Croatia did not use a large part of the funds for earthquake reconstruction. It is now clear that this will not be possible until June 2022, when the deadline for the use of funds expires, which means that the unspent amount will have to be returned to the budget of the European Union.