The purpose and aim of this paper is to show how EU membership and the withdrawal of EU funds affect the progress of Member States in all areas of social and economic development, highlighting the benefits that EU membership brings to its members. The paper provides an overview of the EU funds that support EU policies and explains the programming and implementation process of projects. It also discusses the impact of EU funds on the development of Croatian society and economy. EU membership has obliged Croatia to participate in the financing of the European budget, but in the ten years of its membership Croatia has withdrawn three times more money from the EU funds than it has paid into the EU budget. After Croatia's accession to the European Union in 2013, the withdrawal of funds from EU funds has been inefficient and slow, as a large part of the approved money flows back into the EU budget. In recent years, the percentage of funds withdrawn from EU funds has increased significantly, indicating that the complicated process of programming and developing high-quality projects for which funds are approved has been mastered. In its ten years of EU membership, Croatia has used EU funds to build major infrastructure projects and raise the living standards of its citizens. The benefits of EU membership for Croatia are manifold and go beyond EU funds. Membership has raised the standards of democratic, media and civil liberties, and Croatia has also become part of the European common market. This has encouraged exports and the exchange of ideas and people. In 2022, the Republic of Croatia became part of the Schengen area, which enables travel to member states without border controls and facilitates access for tourists. Croatia has also been part of the eurozone since 2023 and uses the euro as its currency. For the 2021-2027 financial period, extensive funding has been approved for Croatia from the Cohesion Fund and the European Structural Funds, which support the EU's cohesion policy. Croatia has also defined a national development strategy until 2030, which is aligned with the EU strategy in order to use the funds from the new EU program period until 2030. The empirical part of the article describes a project that had a significant impact on the restoration of the cultural heritage of Osijek Fortress and the development oftourism in Osijek and the surrounding area.