“My name is Pejo Bosnić and I am turning 23 this year. I like to say that I have two homelands – Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia. I grew up and finished primary and secondary school in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and I am currently studying Business Economics; majoring in Logistics Management at the Faculty of Economics in Osijek (Croatia).

I have been socially active since high school and I see activities in civil society as a great opportunity for young people who are still unburdened by various life obligations to try to make their selfless contribution to the community and in this way work to improve the conditions necessary for a quality life in the community, but and society in general. From the beginning of my studies, regional politics and macro-regions seemed to me to be interesting areas that I would like to deal with in the near or distant future, either actively or passively. I found the motivation to start more actively dealing with these topics and to get involved in the work of our PA in the desire to contribute to the country and the region where I grew up and where I plan to spend the rest of my life. I think it is important to raise awareness in people about how important it is to love the society we live in and to take care of it in any way, even when we think we can do absolutely nothing about it. As an economics student, I often encounter prejudices about economics as a discipline that is not as significant or does not contribute to society as some other fields that are “mainstream” in today’s world. Considering that such an approach is wrong and that the economy is a much broader term than people really perceive, I decided to constantly question myself and look for new potential solutions, starting from the lowest levels.

I decided to participate in the work of this particular PA after an excellent presentation that encouraged me to study in detail on the Internet the topics that PA deals with. Then I realized that these were topics that I had either dealt with at university or topics that I was planning to to start working on, but I didn’t know where to do it.

So far, I have participated in several online meetings of our PA, and the live Steering Group Meeting in Stuttgart, which left a strong impression on me and a completely new perception when it comes to improving the conditions for our entrepreneurs, but also for ourselves in the countries where we come from. Working with these people helped me broaden my horizons and start thinking and working more actively on issues that PA deals with, namely the empowerment and cooperation of small and medium-sized enterprises, the bioeconomy, and the reduction of cross-border barriers between countries in the region, given that one part of the countries of the region are part of the European Union, while the other part is not.”