The European Union will increase the amount planned for financing the candidate countries for almost ten percent in the next seven years, the bloc's leaders agreed on the pandemic recovery plan and seven-year budget after marathon talks on Tuesday, N1 reported.

The meeting during which 27 EU leaders agreed on the amount ended at 5 am, after almost five days of negotiations.

The Western Balkans countries will have access to those 12.5 billion Euro through the pre-accession funds.

“Those are not the only funds Serbia and the Western Balkans could count on. There are the European funds for sustainable development, as well as the EU Recovery Fund with ten billion Euro in grants available to the region,” Marina Maksimovic, a Deutsche Welle correspondent from Brussels, said.

Earlier, Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic tweeted about the meeting, writing his country, as an EU member state, would get “22 billion Euro as a guarantee of a quick economic recovery and further balanced development of the country.”