Serbia: Lessons from Yugoslavia’s demise

Momcilo Pantelic

Politika

The European Union is looking a lot like Yugoslavia in its waning days, said Momcilo Pantelic. Yugoslavia began to dissolve in 1991, when Slovenia and Croatia declared independence, but the break had been years in the making. The late 1980s saw “excessive nationalism” and rising incompatibility among the Yugoslav states—just what we’re seeing now in the EU. The country had two main power centers, Belgrade and Zagreb, just as the EU has two poles, Berlin and Paris. Perhaps most salient is the “democratic deficit” common to both. Communist Yugoslavia was not governed by directly elected leaders, and neither is the EU. “In both cases, the fear that the more populous states would have too much influence prevented the introduction of the principle of one citizen, one vote.”

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I’m not arguing that the EU is headed for war, of course; even a breakup would be the worst-case scenario, not an inevitability. But it’s worth noting that just like Yugoslavia, the EU has failed to find “the right compromise between the center and the periphery, nationalism and internationalism, internal and common policy, and indebtedness and growth.” Until it solves those problems, its continued existence is far from assured.