The Path of the Former Yugoslav Countries to the European Union: From Integration to Disintegration and Back

Abstract

The dissolution of the former Yugoslavia took place in a wider context of democratic changes all over Europe. The history of European international relations has been marked by processes of integration, disintegration, divisions, armed conflicts, and so on, caused by various ideological, religious and other reasons. Processes of democratization in many countries led to the organization of the first multiparty elections in multinational countries in Eastern and Middle Europe, which used to be founded on the concept of socialist ideology. At the time of its dissolution, the former Yugoslavia constituted six republics: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia, and two autonomous provinces: Kosovo and Vojvodina. The authors indicate the basic disintegration movements in the process of the former Yugoslavia's dissolution, highlighting the viewpoint of international law and the aspects of possible reintegration in some other form of union. In light of the latest political aspirations, the question of (re)integration and/or disintegration of the former Yugoslav republics is understandable. However, taking into account the history and the war-related events of the early 1990s, the following question may be posed: Is that particular reunion a historical and political irony? In search of the answer to the latter question the authors emphasize a legal perspective, which recognizes the state as a dominant subject of international law (but not the only one), and analyse the aspect of its constituting the international community, and its recognition within that community.