SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE

(1990-2005)

(wikipedia, britannica)
ALBANIA

Transition

In 1991, Ramiz Alia became the first President of Albania. Alia tried to follow in Enver
Hoxha's footsteps, but the changes had already started and the collapse of communism
throughout Europe led to widespread changes within the society of Albania. Mikhail
Gorbachev had appeared in the Soviet Union with new rules and policies (glasnost and
perestroika). However, Alia took similar steps, signing the Helsinki Agreement and
allowing pluralism under pressure from students and workers.[100] Afterwards, the
first multi-party elections took place since the communists assumed power in Albania.
The Socialist Party led by Ramiz Alia won the 1991 elections.[100] Nevertheless, it was
clear that the change would not be stopped. Pursuant to a 29 April 1991 interim basic
law, Albanians ratified a constitution on 28 November 1998, establishing a democratic
system of government based upon the rule of law and guaranteeing the protection of
fundamental human rights.

Furthermore, the Communists retained support and governmental control in the first
round of elections under the interim law, but fell two months later during a general
strike. A committee of "national salvation" took over but also collapsed in half a year. On
22 March 1992, the Communists were trumped by the Democratic Party after winning
the 1992 parliamentary elections.[101] The transition from the socialist state to a
parliamentary system had many challenges. The Democratic Party had to implement the
reforms it had promised, but they were either too slow or didn't solve the problems, so
the people were disappointed when their hopes for fast prosperity went unfulfilled.

Democratization

The Democratic Party took control after winning the second multi-party elections,
deposing the Communist Party. Afterwards, Sali Berisha became the second President.
Today, Berisha is the longest-serving and the only President of Albania elected to a
second term. In 1995, Albania became the 35th member of the Council of Europe and
requested membership in North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO).[102] The people
of Albania has continued to emigrate to western European countries, especially to
Greece and Italy but also to the United States.

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Deliberate programmes of economic and democratic reforms were put in place, but
Albanian inexperience with capitalism led to the proliferation of pyramid schemes,
which were not banned due to the corruption of the government. Anarchy in the late
1996s to early 1997s, as a result of the collapse of these pyramid schemes, alarmed the
world and prompted international mediation. In the early spring 1997, Italy led a
multinational military and humanitarian intervention (Operation Alba), authorized by
the United Nations Security Council, to help stabilize the country.[103] The government
of Berisha collapsed in 1997 in the wake of the additional collapse of pyramid schemes
and widespread corruption, which caused anarchy and rebellion throughout the country,
backed up by former communists and Sigurimi former members. The government
attempted to suppress the rebellion by military force but the attempt failed, due to long-
term corrosion of the Military of Albania due to political and social factors. Few months
later, after the 1997 parliamentary elections the Democratic Party was defeated by the
Socialist Party, winning just 25 seats out of a total of 156. Sali Berisha resigned and the
Socialists elected Rexhep Meidani as President. Including to that, the leader of the
Socialists Fatos Nano was elected as Prime Minister, a post which he held until October
1998, when he resigned as a result of the tense situation created in the country after the
assassination of Azem Hajdari, a prominent leader of the Democratic Party. Due to that,
Pandeli Majko was then elected Prime Minister until November 1999, when he was
replaced by Ilir Meta. The Parliament adopted the current Constitution on 29 November
1998. Albania approved its constitution through a popular referendum which was held
in November 1998, but which was boycotted by the opposition. The general local
elections of October 2000 marked the loss of control of the Democrats over the local
governments and a victory for the Socialists.

In 2001, Albania has made strides toward democratic reform and maintaining the rule of
law, serious deficiencies in the electoral code remain to be addressed, as demonstrated
in the elections.[citation needed] International observers judged the elections to be
acceptable, but the Union for Victory Coalition, the second-largest vote recipient,
disputed the results and boycotted parliament until 31 January 2002. In June 2005, the
democratic coalition formed a government with the Sali Berisha. His return to power in
the elections of 3 July 2005 ended eight years of Socialist Party rule. After Alfred Moisiu,
in 2006 Bamir Topi was elected President of Albania until 2010. Despite the political

2
situation, the economy of Albania grew at an estimated 5% in 2007. The Albanian lek has
strengthened from 143 lekeë to the US dollar in 2000 to 92 lekeë in 2007.

GREECE

On 1 January 1981, Greece became the tenth member of the European Community (now
the European Union).[9] In parliamentary elections held on 18 October 1981, Greece
elected its first socialist government when the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK),
led by Andreas Papandreou, won 172 of 300 seats. On 29 March 1985, after Prime
Minister Papandreou declined to support President Karamanlis for a second term,
Supreme Court Justice Christos Sartzetakis was elected president by the Greek
parliament.

Greece had two rounds of parliamentary elections in 1989; both produced weak
coalition governments with limited mandates. Party leaders withdrew their support in
February 1990, and elections were held on 8 April. New Democracy, led by Constantine
Mitsotakis, won 150 seats in that election and subsequently gained two others. However,
a split between Mitsotakis and his first Foreign Minister, Antonis Samaras, in 1992, led to
Samaras' dismissal and the eventual collapse of the ND government. In new elections in
September 1993, Papandreou returned to power.

On 17 January 1996, following a protracted illness, Papandreou resigned and was

replaced as Prime Minister by former Minister of Trade and Industry Costas Simitis.
Within days, the new prime minister had to handle a major Greek-Turkish crisis over the
Imia/Kardak islands. Simitis subsequently won re-election in the 1996 and 2000
elections. In 2004, Simitis retired and George Papandreou succeeded him as PASOK
leader.[10]

In the March 2004 elections, PASOK was defeated by New Democracy, led by Kostas
Karamanlis, the nephew of the former President. The government called early elections
in September 2007 (normally, elections would have been held in March 2008), and New
Democracy again was the majority party in the Parliament. As a result of that defeat,
PASOK undertook a party election for a new leader. In that contest, George Papandreou
was reelected as the head of the socialist party in Greece. In the 2009 elections however,
PASOK became the majority party in the Parliament and George Papandreou became

3
Prime Minister of Greece. After PASOK lost its majority in the Parliament, ND and PASOK
joined the smaller Popular Orthodox Rally in a grand coalition, pledging their
parliamentary support for a government of national unity headed by former European
Central Bank vice-president Lucas Papademos.

TURKEY (1970-2015)

Military intervention and coalition governments

Senior army officers, concerned by the uncontrolled spread of political violence and a
revolt in Kurdish regions of eastern Turkey—a part of the region commonly referred to
as Kurdistan—and fearing that political divisions would spread to the army itself,
delivered a warning to the government in March 1970 and a year later forced Demirel’s
resignation. During the next two years, Turkey was ruled by supraparty coalitions of
conservative politicians and technocrats who governed with the support of the army and
who were primarily concerned with restoring law and order. Martial law was established
in several provinces and was not completely lifted until September 1973; there were
armed clashes with guerrillas and many arrests and trials; extremist political parties,
including the WPT and the Islamic-based National Order Party (NOP), were shut down;
and the constitution was amended to limit personal freedoms. Unlike in 1960–61,
however, there was no sweeping political reorganization; the constitution, parliament,
and major political parties remained. In 1973 the army withdrew to the barracks when
its candidate for the presidency was defeated, leaving government once more to the
politicians.

From 1973 until 1980 the army and the politicians were faced with the consequences of
their failure to address the political problems that had led to the 1971 military
intervention. During these years Turkey was ruled mainly by weak coalition
governments dependent on the support of minor parties, including the extremists; these
extremists refused to agree to measures that would curb their own violence, and they
introduced their supporters into state institutions. The annual death toll from political
violence rose from 34 in 1975 to about 1,500 before the military intervention in
September 1980.

4
In the 1973 election the CHP emerged as the strongest party, with about one-third of the
vote, narrowly defeating its principal rival, the JP. The CHP had changed its character
since the early 1960s; its conservative wing, opposed to the leftist program adopted at
the 1965 election, had departed. The party leader, Iİnoë nuë , supported the radicals but in
1972 was discarded in favour of the radical leader, Buë lent Ecevit. The CHP thus became a
social democratic party, drawing its support primarily from workers and intellectuals in
the major cities. The remainder of the vote was distributed among small parties, mainly
of the right.

Lacking a majority, the CHP formed a coalition with the National Salvation Party (NSP),
founded in 1972 as a successor to the banned NOP and led by Necmettin Erbakan. The
electoral success of the NSP—which polled more than one-tenth of the vote—was
striking. Although the constitution banned religious parties, the NSP was in all but name
an Islamic party; in 1980 it called for the restoration of Islamic law (Sharīīʿah). The
coalition’s principal domestic achievement was a land reform measure that reduced
ceilings on landholdings to about 250 acres (100 hectares) of irrigated and 500 acres
(200 hectares) of dry land. Implementation of the land reform was slow, however, and
the law was eventually annulled by the constitutional court in 1977. In September 1974
Ecevit resigned, hoping to bring about an election in which he could profit from the
popular Turkish invasion of Cyprus (see Foreign affairs since 1950), but his gamble
failed; nonpartisan and coalition governments of the right followed, and there was no
election until 1977.

In the 1977 elections the CHP again emerged as the largest party, with about two-fifths
of the vote, edging out the JP. The smaller parties, which had done so well in 1973, lost
votes but still held the balance of power in the assembly. The NSP took about one-tenth
of the vote and the NAP a smaller proportion. Demirel’s ineffective coalition government
continued and was succeeded in 1978 by an even more ineffective coalition under Ecevit.
Inflation, unemployment, the trade deficit, and political violence all grew rapidly. The
economy was seriously weakened by a rise in world oil prices and a fall in remittances
from Turkish workers abroad. Ecevit resigned in 1979, and Demirel formed a minority JP
government that announced a major new economic recovery program.

5
The 1980s

On September 12, 1980, the senior command of the army, led by General Kenan Evren,
carried out a bloodless coup. This coup, the third army intervention in 20 years, was
generally supported by the public. The leading politicians were arrested, and parliament,
political parties, and trade unions were dissolved. A five-member National Security
Council took control, suspending the constitution and implementing a provisional
constitution that gave almost unlimited power to military commanders. Martial law,
which had been established in a number of provinces in 1979, was extended throughout
Turkey, and a major security operation was launched to eradicate terrorism. There
followed armed clashes, thousands of arrests, imprisonment, torture, and executions, but
political violence by opponents of the government was greatly reduced.

As it had been in 1971, the army’s intervention was prompted by disgust at the failure of
the politicians to control violence, fear of the Islamic upsurge (which drew strength from
the Iranian Revolution [1978–79] that had resulted in the declaration of an Islamic
Republic), concern at the spread of guerrilla warfare in Kurdistan, and renewed worries
that the army might become infected by the politicization that had paralyzed the police
force. In 1980, however, the army was determined not only to restore order but also to
undertake a thorough reform of the political system.

The 1982 constitution

A new constitution, modeled on the French constitution of 1958, was approved by

referendum in 1982. It provided for a strong president (elected for a seven-year term)
who appointed the prime minister and senior judges and could dismiss parliament and
declare a state of emergency. A unicameral parliament replaced the bicameral
experiment of 1961, and—in an effort to reduce the influence of smaller parties—no
party polling less than 10 percent of the votes cast was to receive seats in parliament.
There were also close controls over political parties, the press, and trade unions.

The first elections under the new constitution were held in 1983 and were a
disappointment to the army, which had intended that two parties—the centre-right
National Democratic Party (NDP) and the centre-left Populist Party (PP)—should
dominate the new parliament. Instead, a third party, the Motherland Party (MP),

6
emerged as the clear winner, gaining more than half the seats. The MP—a heterogeneous
coalition of liberal, nationalist, social democratic, and Islamic groups—owed its success
to the unwillingness of Turks to accept the army’s prescription for government and to
the reputation of its leader, Turgut OÖ zal. OÖ zal was considered an authority on economic
issues; he had been the author of the JP’s economic reform package of 1980 and had
been responsible for the successful stabilization program carried out after the army
intervention. By the early 1980s, then, only the army upheld the principles of Atatuë rk.

Under OÖ zal’s leadership the MP ruled Turkey until 1991. From 1983 to 1987 its
economic policies—based on removing state controls, encouraging foreign trade, and
relying on free-market principles—had considerable success, helped by the fall in world
oil prices and by opportunities created by the Iran-Iraq War (1980–88). The inflation
rate fell, and economic growth was strong. After 1987, however, the economic situation
deteriorated as a result of the world recession of the late 1980s and early ’90s and the
government’s failure to stem the rising budget deficit, largely the consequence of the
continued burden of inefficient, heavily subsidized state industries. Inflation and
unemployment rose, and a large foreign-trade deficit developed.

The Kurdish conflict

The public security situation also worsened, notably in the Kurdish provinces of the
southeast. Following major social changes associated with the commercialization of
agriculture since the 1950s, there were outbreaks of violence in Kurdistan during the
1970s, generally linked with the activities of the revolutionary left. After 1980, however,
the disturbances took on a specifically Kurdish character. Several groups emerged,
espousing demands ranging from freedom of cultural expression to outright
independence; some turned to violence to advance their cause. The most important of
these groups was the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partiya Karkeran Kurdistan; PKK), led
by Abdullah OÖ calan. The PKK, a leftist group founded in 1978, initiated violent attacks in
the late 1970s before launching its armed campaign against the state in 1984 from bases
in Iraq. The PKK sought an independent Kurdish state or, possibly, full Kurdish
autonomy. With between 5,000 and 10,000 armed fighters, the PKK directed attacks
against government property, government officials, Turks living in the Kurdish regions,
Kurds accused of collaborating with the government, foreigners, and Turkish diplomatic

7
missions abroad. The PKK received support from Syria and from Kurds living abroad and
also acquired money through criminal activities. From 1991 the existence of so-called
safe havens in Iraqi Kurdistan—established following the Persian Gulf War (1990–91)
and protected by U.S. and British forces—provided new bases for PKK operations.
Turkish governments sought to deal with the Kurdish problem by granting cultural
concessions in 1991 and limited autonomy in 1993. The establishment of Kurdish
political parties, however, remained forbidden. The main government effort remained
the military suppression of the uprising; martial law was imposed in Kurdish areas, and
increasing numbers of troops and security forces were committed to the task. By 1993
the total number of security forces involved in the struggle in southeastern Turkey was
about 200,000, and the conflict had become the largest civil war in the Middle East. It is
estimated that between 1982 and 1995 some 15,000 people were killed, the great
majority of them Kurdish civilians. Dozens of villages were destroyed and many
inhabitants driven from their homes. Turkish forces also attacked PKK bases in Iraq, first
from the air and then with ground forces; in an operation in late 1992, about 20,000
Turkish troops entered the safe havens in Iraq, and in 1995 some 35,000 troops were
employed in a similar campaign.

In the 1987 election the MP was returned to power. Its share of the vote fell to slightly
more than one-third, but it expanded its representation in parliament. Prior to the
election, the political rights of the old politicians had been restored, and they figured
prominently in the campaign. Demirel reemerged as the leader of the True Path Party
(TPP; founded 1983), which won about one-fifth of the vote. Erdal Iİnoë nuë , the son of
Iİsmet Iİnoë nuë , led the Social Democratic and Populist Party (SDPP; founded 1985), which
gained one-fourth of the vote. Erbakan’s new Welfare Party (WP; an Islamic party) and
Tuë rkeş’s right-wing National Endeavour Party (NEP) also took part, although they failed
to obtain at least 10 percent of the vote and thus were not represented in parliament.

After 1987 the popularity of the MP fell rapidly. Fractures developed—especially

between liberals and Islamists—and OÖ zal was heavily criticized for nepotism and
corruption. In October 1989 OÖ zal was elected president, succeeding Evren, while within
the MP the internal struggle continued and was eventually decided in favour of the
liberals, whose young leader, Mesut Yīlmaz, became prime minister.

8
The 1990s

Despite considerable fluctuations from year to year, Turkey maintained the economic
advance that had begun in 1950. Increasingly, Turkey was becoming an urbanized,
industrialized country and a major exporter of manufactured goods, especially to
Europe. Yet the pace of economic change was an underlying cause of much of the social
and political unrest that beset Turkey during the 1990s.

The MP was defeated in the elections of 1991 but secured about one-fourth of the vote.
The remainder of the centre-right vote went to the TPP, which emerged as the largest
party in the new assembly. Mainly because of personality differences between OÖ zal and
Demirel, the obvious coalition government of the MP and the TPP was not possible;
instead, the TPP formed a coalition government with the third largest party, the SDPP.
The declining centre-left vote was divided between the SDPP and the Democratic Left
Party (DLP) of Ecevit. The program of the new government, with Demirel as prime
minister, represented a compromise between the economic liberalism of the TPP and the
political liberalism of the SDPP, but the lack of fundamental agreement made it difficult
to tackle the economic and political problems that troubled Turkey. In addition to the
continuing Kurdish war, there was a recrudescence of the political violence by the radical
left and right. After OÖ zal’s death in 1993, Demirel was elected president. Tansu Çiller, a
liberal economist, became Turkey’s first woman prime minister. Çiller emphasized more-
rapid economic privatization and closer links with the European Union (EU). The
coalition government collapsed in September 1995 when the SDPP withdrew from the
government after protracted internal divisions. Çiller failed to form a new coalition and
called an election for December 1995.

The most-striking feature of the 1995 election was the extent of support for the WP,
which emerged as the largest single party, with about one-fifth of the vote. The political
success of the WP reflected the increasing role of Islam in Turkish life during the 1980s
and ’90s, as evidenced by changes in dress and appearance, segregation of the sexes, the
growth of Islamic schools and banks, and support for Sufi orders. Support for the WP
came not only from the smaller towns but also from major cities, where the WP drew
support from the secular left parties. The WP stood for a greater role for Islam in public
life, state-directed economic expansion, and a turning away from Europe and the West

9
toward the Islamic countries of the Middle East. Despite its electoral success, the WP was
unable to find a coalition partner to form a government, and in March 1996 a coalition
government of the MP and TPP was formed, although it was dependent on voting
support from the centre left. Yīlmaz and Çiller agreed to share the prime ministership;
Yīlmaz took the first turn, in 1996.

In June 1996 Erbakan’s Islamist WP formed a short-lived coalition government, which

was opposed by secularists and the armed forces. By mid-1997 Erbakan was succeeded
by Yīlmaz and the MP. However, two years later the MP lost power to the DLP, still led by
Ecevit. The DLP government benefited from the capture of PKK leader OÖ calan, who was
sentenced to death. Late in 1997 a pair of powerful earthquakes shook eastern Turkey,
killing thousands.

Challenges of the 21st century

Turkey under the AKP

In 2002 the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkīnma Partisi; AKP), a party
with Islamist roots, swept the parliamentary elections. It came to power under the
ostensible leadership of Abdullah Guë l, since party leader Recep Tayyip Erdogğ an was
ineligible to serve in parliament or as prime minister because of a 1998 conviction; a
constitutional amendment in late 2002 removed this ineligibility. Erdogğ an won a seat in
parliament in early 2003 and quickly replaced Guë l as prime minister. That same year
Turkey refused to grant transit through its territory to the U.S. military during the Iraq
War, though it did extend rights to air transport.

In January 2007 Armenian journalist and community leader Hrant Dink was murdered
outside his office in Istanbul. Many viewed his assassination as a political attack, as Dink
had received a number of death threats for his position on the early 20th-century
treatment of Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman Empire—long a highly sensitive
topic and a source of tension between the Turkish and Armenian communities (see
Armenian massacres) and between the governments of Turkey and Armenia. In October
2009 the two countries made a landmark effort to overcome their historical grievances,
signing an agreement that would have normalized diplomatic relations, opened the
Turkish-Armenian border, and established an international commission to investigate

10
the World War I-era killings. However, support for the reconciliation process soon
faltered on both sides, and the agreement was not implemented.

Tensions had simmered again in 2007 when tens of thousands of secularist protesters,
wary of Erdogğ an’s Islamist roots, demonstrated in Ankara in an attempt to discourage
him from seeking the presidency; Erdogğ an acquiesced. The AKP then nominated Guë l as
its candidate, even though he shared a similar political history with Erdogğ an: both began
their careers in a pro-Islamic party, since banned, and both were married to women who
opted to wear the head scarf, a visible marker of religion in a resolutely secular republic
and a major source of contention in modern Turkish society. Guë l’s marriage to a woman
who wore the head scarf was received as but one signal of his Islamist leanings, an
unnerving proposition for many voters.

Though many suggested that the Islamist roots of the AKP might represent a challenge to
Turkey’s secular democracy, others felt that the periodic intrusion of the military into
Turkish politics posed a greater threat. The military, which had maneuvered Turkish
political proceedings in the past, issued a memorandum on the Internet criticizing the
rising role of Islamists in the government and indicating military readiness to act if an
unapproved candidate, such as Guë l, won the presidency; this approach was dubbed an
“e-coup” by pundits.

Guë l went on to receive the majority of the votes in parliament’s election for the
presidency, but the CHP opposition boycotted the vote and caused Guë l to fall short of the
necessary quorum by a narrow margin. Consequently, the election results were later
overturned in court, and a stalemate ensued. Erdogğ an worked to resolve the standoff by
calling for early parliamentary elections, in which the AKP secured a decisive victory. In
spite of the previous political standoff, the AKP then once more nominated Guë l as its
candidate, and in the parliamentary elections that followed he won the presidency by a
wide margin.

The confrontation between the AKP and the secular opposition took on a new dimension
in 2007 when Turkish authorities claimed to have uncovered a cache of weapons
belonging to an ultranationalist network plotting to overthrow the government. The
revelation launched a series of lengthy interrelated investigations that saw hundreds of
nationalist figures, including a number of high-ranking military officers, arrested and put

11
on trial for having allegedly participated in antigovernment conspiracies. Three senior
officers were convicted in 2012 and sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment, and more
than 300 other officers received lighter sentences.

Meanwhile, in February 2008 the parliament voted to amend Turkey’s constitution by

eliminating a ban barring the head scarf from being worn on university campuses. The
amendment aggravated a long-standing fault line within Turkish society; while portions
of the population supported the liberty to wear the head scarf, others feared that the
change endangered Turkey’s secular ideals and could lead to increasing pressure upon
those women who choose not to wear the garment. Galvanized by the amendment,
opponents of the AKP renewed charges that the party’s Islamist agenda threatened
Turkish secular order. In March 2008 the constitutional court voted unanimously to hear
a case that called for the disbanding of the AKP and a five-year ban of Erdogğ an and
dozens of other party members from Turkish politics, and in early June it annulled the
amendment. The AKP successfully retained its position, however, when in July 2008 the
court ruled narrowly against the party’s closure.

Turkey’s constitution was further amended in September 2010, when Turkish voters
approved 26 amendments backed by Erdogğ an and the AKP. Largely designed to bring the
country in line with EU standards on democracy and to support the country’s bid for
membership in that organization, the amendments included measures that bolstered
human rights and held the military accountable to civilian courts for crimes against the
state or against constitutional order. The amendments also included measures that
expanded the influence of the president and parliament over judicial appointments. The
constitutional reforms were widely praised on the international level, but within the
country criticism was raised by the opposition, which alleged that the measures would
allow Erdogğ an and the AKP to exercise control over the military and judiciary, two
institutions with which they had clashed in the past.

In 2011 the AKP campaigned for parliamentary elections on a pledge to replace Turkey’s
existing constitution. In June the AKP won by large margins in the elections, securing a
strong majority in the Grand National Assembly and another term as prime minister for
Erdogğ an. However, it fell short of the two-thirds majority needed to unilaterally write a
new constitution.

12
In early June 2013 Turkey saw an unprecedented display of discontent after a small
demonstration in Istanbul over plans to convert a public park into a shopping mall was
violently broken up by police. The incident sparked an outpouring of anger against the
Erdogğ an- and AKP-led government. Demonstrations against economic inequality as well
as against the government’s perceived authoritarianism and religious conservatism
quickly spread through the country and were, in many instances, met by riot police firing
tear gas and rubber bullets. Erdogğ an responded defiantly, dismissing the protesters as
thugs and vandals and holding rallies for AKP supporters.

In August 2014 Ahmet Davutogğ lu took over the post of prime minister from Erdogğ an,
who was prohibited by AKP rules from seeking another term. Davutogğ lu, an AKP
member who had previously served for five years as foreign minister under Erdogğ an,
was widely expected to follow the course set by his predecessor in both domestic and
foreign affairs. Erdogğ an remained in public life, running for and winning the largely
ceremonial role of president.

In a parliamentary election in June 2015, the AKP fell short of an absolute majority for
the first time in its history, receiving just 41 percent of the vote. The results were largely
seen as a rebuke to Erdogğ an, who had made it known that he would seek constitutional
changes that would expand the powers of the presidency. The setback was a brief one for
the AKP, however. Negotiations over the summer failed to produce a governing coalition,
triggering a snap parliamentary election on November 1. The AKP won easily, regaining
its majority and falling just short of the number of seats needed to unilaterally call a
referendum on expanding the powers of the presidency.

On the night of July 15, 2016, a small faction within the army attempted to launch a coup
against the AKP-led government, deploying tanks and troops to the streets of Ankara and
Istanbul and seizing facilities, including television stations and bridges. In a statement,
the coup plotters accused the government of eroding the democratic order and
damaging the rule of law in Turkey. The coup was poorly planned, though, with no
backing from the public and only narrow support within the military, so it began to falter
almost as soon as it started. Erdogğ an, who had been vacationing on the Mediterranean
coast, rushed back to Istanbul, using social media to quickly rally his supporters to
confront coup plotters in the streets. The coup plotters were soon overwhelmed by loyal

13
military units and civilians, and by morning the government was firmly back in control.
Nearly 300 people, mostly civilians, had been killed in confrontations. Over the months
that followed, Erdogğ an conducted a wide purge, removing thousands of police, soldiers,
and civil servants from their jobs over suspicions that they might have been sympathetic
to the coup.

In January 2017 the Grand National Assembly approved legislation to hold a referendum
on constitutional amendments that would dramatically expand the powers of the
presidency. Under the proposed amendments, the president would become head of
government as well as head of state and wield increased authority to make
governmental appointments and pass laws by decree, while the post of prime minister
would be eliminated. Erdogğ an, who had sought such measures since becoming president
in 2014, campaigned vigorously in favour of the referendum. It was narrowly approved
by voters on April 16, 2017, and the changes were set to be implemented after the next
elections, due to take place in November 2019. Early elections were called, however, and
were held on June 24, 2018. Prior to the elections, the AKP entered into an alliance with
the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). The alliance collectively received a majority of
the vote in the parliamentary contest, and Erdogğ an won an outright majority in the
presidential contest.

Negotiations with the PKK

The PKK, quiescent since the capture of OÖ calan in 1999, resumed guerrilla activities in
2004 under a new name, Kongra-Gel, chosen in 2003. Although the organization
reverted to its former designation (PKK) in 2005, some elements continued to make use
of the new name. The group was thought to be the source of a number of subsequent
attacks, and in October 2007 the Turkish parliament approved military action for one
year against PKK targets across the border in Iraq; a series of strikes began in December,
and a ground incursion was initiated in February. Although the United States indicated
its support for the limited maneuvers against the PKK by sharing intelligence with
Turkey, it encouraged the development of a long-term resolution to the conflict.

14
Foreign affairs since 1950

Until the 1960s, Turkish foreign policy was wholly based on close relations with the
West, particularly the friendship of the United States. Turkey sent troops to fight in the
Korean War and joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO; 1952) and the
Central Treaty Organization (1955). This Western-oriented policy derived from Turkey’s
fear of its enormous northern neighbour, the Soviet Union, from its dependence on U.S.
military and economic aid, and from its desire to be accepted as a secular, democratic,
Western state. After 1960, however, this policy came into question as a consequence of
East-West deé tente, the rise of economic and political cooperation in western Europe, and
the growing economic importance of Middle Eastern countries.

Doubts also began to creep into Turkish political thought about the reliability of the
United States as an ally, especially in consequence of events in Cyprus. The independence
of Cyprus had been arranged through the Zuë rich and London agreements of 1959.
Turkey sought to protect the interests of the Turkish community on Cyprus, and, when
these were threatened by disputes between Turkish and Greek Cypriots in 1963 and
again in 1967, Turkey contemplated intervention. In July 1974 the Greek government
supported the leaders of a coup that overthrew the Cypriot president, Makarios III, and
proclaimed the union of Cyprus with Greece. Failing to persuade either Britain or the
United States to take effective action, Turkey acted unilaterally and occupied the
northern part of the island, refusing to withdraw until a new arrangement satisfactory to
the Turkish Cypriots was agreed to and guaranteed. These events, which were followed
by disputes over the extent of territorial waters, underwater resources in the Aegean
Sea, sovereignty over uninhabited islands, and airspace, led to bad relations with Greece
and a cooling of relations with the United States, which Turks believed had favoured
Greece. In 1987 and 1996 Turkey and Greece came to the brink of war over the Aegean.

As a result, Turkey—while remaining faithful to the Western alliance—broadened its

options. From 1964 it developed better relations with the Soviet Union, leading to a
friendship agreement in 1978; following the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991,
however, Turkey was quick to establish relations with the newly independent
Transcaucasian and Central Asian states (many of which had Turkic-speaking
majorities). Turkey recognized the government of mainland China in 1971, improved

15
relations with the Balkan states (although relations with Bulgaria were disturbed by an
exodus of 300,000 Turkish refugees from that country in 1989), and cultivated closer
connections with the Arab and Islamic worlds. In the former Yugoslavia, popular Turkish
sympathy for the Bosnian Muslims led Turkey to advocate international action on their
behalf, and Turkish forces took part in the United Nations (UN) and NATO operations
there. Turkey cooperated with Iraq in suppressing Kurdish disorder, although it
supported the UN against Iraq in the Persian Gulf War, allowing use of U.S. air bases in
Turkey. In return, the United States extended the defense agreement that was due to
expire in 1990 and increased military and economic aid. International sanctions against
Iraq cost Turkey hundreds of millions of dollars a year in oil pipeline revenues. Turkey’s
relations with Syria were adversely affected by Syria’s support for Kurdish rebels and by
Syrian concern over the construction of the Atatuë rk Dam in southeastern Turkey, which
threatened to divert the Euphrates River, whose flow is shared by Turkey, Syria, and Iraq.

Turkey applied to join the European Economic Community (succeeded by the EU) in
1959, and an association agreement was signed in 1963. In 1987 OÖ zal applied for full
membership. The increasing economic links between Turkey and the EU—more than
half of Turkey’s trade was with the EU in the 1990s—gave the application a stronger
economic justification. However, doubts persisted in the EU, where Turkish policy on
human rights and on Cyprus was criticized, and in Turkey, where the Islamists opposed
membership. Nevertheless, in 1996 a customs union between Turkey and the EU was
inaugurated. In the final years of the 20th century and at the beginning of the 21st,
Turkey continued to flirt with membership in the EU. To strengthen its bid, the Turkish
government began pursuing a number of key changes. In the early 21st century the
emphasis on freedom of speech and Kurdish-language rights was accompanied by a
reformed penal code and a decrease in the role of the military in politics. In 2004 the
death penalty was banned, a move largely lauded by the EU community.

That same year the EU called upon Turkey to intervene in the ongoing Turkish-Greek
Cyprus standoff by encouraging the Turkish north to support a UN-sponsored unification
plan that was to precede Cyprus’s admittance to the EU. Although Turkey was successful
in its efforts and the Turkish north voted strongly in favour of the plan, the Greek south
overwhelmingly rejected it. In May 2004 Cyprus entered the EU as a divided territory:
EU rights and privileges were extended only to the southern region, because it alone was

16
under the administration of the internationally recognized Cypriot government. Late in
the following year, formal negotiations over Turkey’s EU membership were officially
opened. Though it has since recognized Cyprus as a member of the EU, Turkey’s failure
to extend full diplomatic recognition subsequently posed a recurrent stumbling block in
its EU bid; talks were stalled in late 2006 by Turkey’s continued failure to open its air-
and seaports to Cypriot passage.

In addition, Turkey’s bid was slowed by a number of challenges from standing EU

members, with opposition from France and Austria traditionally being among the most
vocal; French Pres. Nicolas Sarkozy expressed the opinion that Turkey did not belong in
the EU. In addition, Sarkozy sought to establish new limitations on future expansion of
the EU community. Austria, France, and Slovakia, among others, suggested that Turkey
be extended a “privileged partnership” in the place of full membership. Nonetheless,
Turkish efforts to gain EU membership persisted, and they included constitutional
reforms in 2010.

The AKP’s victory in 2007 heralded a shift in Turkish foreign policy toward stronger
regional ties and greater independence from Turkey’s traditional alignments with NATO,
the United States, and Israel. Turkey became more outspoken in its support for
Palestinians’ rights and its disapproval of Israeli actions such as the 2008–09 attack on
the Gaza Strip. It also sought engagement with Iran and Syria, the two countries most
resistant to U.S. influence in the Middle East.

Beginning in 2009, Turkish officials and PKK leaders held secret talks to explore options
for peace. Negotiations faltered when the repatriation of 34 PKK fighters and refugees to
Turkey in late 2009 provoked a public celebration among PKK supporters, angering
Turkish officials. The negotiations continued for several more rounds before ending in
2011 without progress. During that time Turkish authorities continued to arrest
members of legal Kurdish parties, usually on charges of having belonged to terrorist
groups. Violence increased after talks ended, reaching its highest level in more than a
decade.

17
A new round of peace negotiations between Turkey and the PKK was announced in
December 2012. From early on, the new talks showed more promise than the ones that
had ended in 2011. In March 2013 the PKK released eight Turkish hostages, and PKK
leader OÖ calan, still in Turkish custody, announced his support for a cease-fire.

BULGARIA

britannica

The era of reforms launched by Mikhail Gorbachev in the Soviet Union had a major
impact on Bulgaria, inspiring greater demands for openness and democratization. The
increase in Bulgarian dissidents, a declining economic situation, and internal party
rivalries led Zhivkov’s colleagues to force his resignation on November 10, 1989. He was
later tried, sentenced, and imprisoned for embezzlement.

End of party rule

Under growing popular pressure, Zhivkov’s successors endorsed a policy of openness,

pluralism, and respect for law, halted repression of the ethnic Turks, and took the first
steps toward separating the Bulgarian Communist Party from the state, such as
repealing its constitutional monopoly of power. After some shuffling of positions, Petar
Mladenov was named head of state, Andrey Lukanov prime minister, and Alexander Lilov
head of the Bulgarian Communist Party. In early 1990 the party held an extraordinary
congress that enacted significant changes in party structure, and in April 1990 it
renamed itself the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP).

In the meantime, dissident groups had taken advantage of the country’s new freedoms to
organize opposition political parties. Many of these joined the Union of Democratic
Forces (UDF), a coalition led by the sociologist Zheliu Zhelev. By the spring of 1990, at a
roundtable held between early January and May 1990, the UDF and the BSP had agreed
to free elections for a Grand National Assembly that would prepare a new constitution.
In these June elections the socialists won a narrow majority. In July 1990 Mladenov
resigned after it was discovered that he had recommended a military crackdown on
protesters in late 1989. Because their majority was too small to allow them to govern
alone, in August 1990 the BSP supported the election of Zhelev as head of state.

18
The National Assembly adopted a new constitution on July 12, 1991, which proclaimed
Bulgaria a parliamentary republic and promised citizens a broad range of freedoms.
During the summer several parties withdrew from the UDF coalition, and those that
remained split into two factions: UDF (liberals) and UDF (movement). In elections for
the National Assembly held in October 1991, the UDF (movement) won a narrow
majority of seats over the BSP, with the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF;
primarily representing the country’s Turkish minority) gaining few seats; no other
minority party gained the required minimum percentage of the vote to qualify for
participation in parliament. The leader of the UDF, Philip Dimitrov, was elected prime
minister and, with the support of the MRF, formed a government, without BSP
participation. Under the new constitution, Zhelev was elected president for a five-year
term in general elections held in January 1992.

Transition

Dimitrov’s government launched an ambitious reform program aimed at changing the

country into a pro-Western democracy with a market economy. Chief among the reforms
were the liberalization of prices, the restitution of properties commandeered during the
communist regime, and the restructuring of state-owned enterprises. Efforts were made
to ease the external debt, build a legal framework for the new market infrastructure, and
reach out to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. In 1992
Bulgaria joined the Council of Europe, and in 1993 it signed the Europe Agreement with
the European Union, in which it sought membership.

Bulgaria recognized the newly independent former Yugoslav republics as states and on
January 16, 1992, became the first country to recognize the Republic of Macedonia. The
relationship between Bulgaria and Macedonia nevertheless continues to be complicated
by the fact that Bulgaria does not recognize the existence of a separate Macedonian
language or nation, claiming that Macedonian is simply a dialect of Bulgarian and that
the Macedonians are really Bulgarians. In addition, successive Bulgarian governments
have refused to recognize the existence of a Macedonian minority in Bulgaria and have
attempted to suppress any expression of a Macedonian national identity among its
citizens. In 2000 the United Macedonian Organization (OMO) “Ilinden”–Party for
Economic Enhancement and Integration of the Population (PIRIN), an organization

19
dedicated to protecting the rights of the Macedonian minority in Bulgaria, was refused
recognition as a political party, an action that was condemned in 2000 by the European
Court of Human Rights.

Meanwhile, President Zhelev grew critical of the UDF and Dimitrov’s government and
received support from the MRF. In October 1992 Dimitrov’s government was forced to
resign by a vote of no confidence. In December 1992 a new government dominated by
the MRF was elected with support from the BSP. For the next two years, under the
leadership of Zhelev’s adviser Luben Berov, reforms stagnated. In elections in December
1994 the BSP won an absolute majority and formed a government headed by party
leader Zhan Videnov, which tried to reestablish subsidies for state-owned enterprises
but faced financial losses. In early 1997, when monthly inflation reached about 240
percent, mass protests forced the government to resign.

Zhelev’s successor as president, Petar Stoyanov, called a new election, and, after a
decisive victory, UDF leader Ivan Kostov formed a pro-market government. It reduced
inflation by introducing a currency board (an institution dedicated to reinforcing a fixed
exchange rate and to a monetary policy that defends that rate), sped up privatization,
and in early 1997 applied for membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO). In elections in June 2001 Simeon Saxecoburggotski, the former tsar of Bulgaria,
led the newly formed National Movement for Simeon II (NDSV) to victory. The new
prime minister weathered criticism that he and his ministers lacked political experience,
and he continued Bulgaria’s program of financial restraint and increased privatization.

In 2002 Stoyanov was replaced as president by Georgi Parvanov, a candidate from a

coalition of leftist and nationalist groups backed by the BSP who nevertheless declared
his intent to not stray from the goals of membership in NATO and the EU. Parvanov was
reelected in October 2006. Bulgaria became a member of NATO in 2004 and a member of
the EU in 2007. Meanwhile, Saxecoburggotski’s party was defeated in the 2005
legislative elections, and Sergei Stanishev of the BSP became prime minister.

wikipedia

The reforms towards liberalization, both social, political and economic in the Eastern
Bloc started with Mikhail Gorbachev's reform program in the Soviet Union which was

20
felt in Bulgaria in the late 1980s. In fact, the release of tightening started with the end of
the Stalinist era and continued slowly to the point that many previously forbidden
literary texts were translated, the same was relevant for Hollywood movies, etc., stores
appeared with Western products that had elements of advertisement (advertisement of
products was generally unknown and not used in the Eastern Bloc since everything was
accessible and the same to all), these new features of the late communist years
acknowledged the gradual breaking of the Iron Curtain for the Comcon people. This,
together with the policies of Gorbachev, led to more freedom and expectations for
democracy among people.

In November 1989, demonstrations on ecological issues were staged in Sofia, and these
soon broadened into a general campaign for political reform. That Communists generally
did not break the demonstrations was a sign of a possible change that would come. In
fact communist politicians reacted by eventually voting for the removal of Todor Zhivkov
as a communist party and country head and replacing him with Petar Mladenov, but this
gained them only a short respite in power. In February 1990 the Communist Party,
forced by street protests gave up its claim on power and in June 1990 the first free
elections since 1931 were held, won by the Bulgarian Socialist Party (the new name of
the Communist Party). In July 1991 a new Constitution was adopted, which regulates a
representative elected President and a Prime Minister and Cabinet.

Transition

Like the other post-socialist regimes in eastern Europe, Bulgaria found the transition to
capitalism rather painful and not easy as expected. The anti-Communist Union of
Democratic Forces (in Bulgarian: СДС, SDS) took office between 1991 and 1992 to carry
through the privatization of agricultural land, properties and industry issuing shares in
government enterprises to all citizens, but these were accompanied by massive
unemployment as industries were no longer tightened to the broken Comecon and failed
in competition of the global market without the participation of Bulgaria to new regional
or world trade organizations, at the same time Bulgaria's industry showed to be
backward which was amendable but in the hurry of political changes neither
government, nor people were ready for industrial modernization. In fact the
disbandment of former State security that was tightened to the Communist party

21
(Bulgarian: ДС, DS) although brought relief to many Bulgarian people previously feared
to speak or express other than communist views, at the same time boosted criminality
never seen before in Bulgaria. The police were not ready to care about and chase the
criminality which was before kept low with the fearful methods of DS. This led to mass
stealing of capital, machinery, materials and even furniture from the industry and also
institutions. Referring to industry this led to soon failing to work of many factories,
etcetera

Zhan Videnov (1995–1997)

The Socialists (former Communists) presented their political visions as the defenders of
the poor against the excesses of the free market. Reaction against economic reforms
appeared because reforms left many unemployed (unemployment was almost not
existing before in Bulgaria) and many towns literally was left to drop economically just
in months, this allowed Zhan Videnov of the Bulgarian Socialist Party to win the 1994
parliamentary elections. Videnov was very young when he stepped in the PM post and
his inability to show political strength and his incompetence was soon acknowledged by
people surrounding him who took advantage of it for own purposes and personal
enrichment. This incompetence and the misguided policies of the Socialist government
in all exacerbated the economic conditions. The government was clearly unsupported by
Western countries and thus Bulgarian foreign policy seriously suffered, and in 1996 the
economy fell into hyperinflation and many banks went bankrupt. In the presidential
elections of that year the SDS's Petar Stoyanov was elected. In 1997 the BSP government
collapsed after a month of nationwide protests and government was appointed by the
President Stoyanov which coped to calm the economic situation. Later the democratic
party of SDS came to power.

Ivan Kostov (1997–2001)

The new Democratic government headed by Ivan Kostov enjoyed strong support and
moved the Bulgarian economy ahead,[clarification needed] but allegations of corruption
and inability to cope with some of the serious problems in the country caused
frustration. The electorate became to some extent dissatisfied with both parties – BSP
and SDS. At that point Stoyanov, who still held some good positions and had public
approval, took part in presidential elections seeking a second mandate, but he

22
scandalously failed with a blunder on TV and lost support, and the elections too. The
newly elected president, former BSP leader Georgi Parvanov, was not very well known to
the public although he was in politics since the early 1990s, and was well received for his
wise political behavior.[according to whom?] Although a BSP candidate, he was rather
perceived as an independent figure and he also always stated to be president to all
Bulgarians without any political reference. At that point with the already dissatisfaction
with both BSP and SDS, people were looking for new alternatives and new politicians.

The return of Simeon II (2001–2005)

Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha was the last king of Bulgaria, serving from 1943 to 1946. Half
a century later, he served as prime minister from 2001 to 2005.

In 2001, Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (Bulgarian: Симеон Сакскобурготски, Simeon

Sakskoburgotski), son of Tsar Boris III of Bulgaria, who had fled from socialist Bulgaria
as a nine-year-old boy in 1946, became Prime Minister of Bulgaria. Several years prior to
that, in 1996, he had visited Bulgaria with his family of two princes and a princess and it
was then when he announced he would soon come back to his homeland to form a new
political party[citation needed]. Several years later, Sakskoburggotski formed the
National Movement Simeon II (NDSV) and swept away both major parties in the
elections of June 2001 with a landslide victory. As Prime Minister, he followed a strong
and strictly pro-western course[according to whom?], as a result of which Bulgaria
joined NATO in 2004 and the European Union in 2007. Economic and political conditions
visibly improved, although economic growth was not as high as expected and
unemployment and emigration remained high. Problematic areas remained corruption,
health care, organized crime (though scaled down[citation needed]), and higher
education, which all need to be massively reformed.

23
ROMANIA

britannica

The approval by referendum of a new constitution on December 8, 1991, setting up a

democratic republic, had given promise of political stability. Nonetheless, grave
problems beset the new government. Particularly troublesome was a resurgence of
nationalism, which exacerbated relations between Romanians and Hungarians in
Transylvania and encouraged the rise of ultranationalist organizations. But the most
intractable problem of all remained the economy. The loss of markets following the
collapse in 1991 of Comecon (whose members received the bulk of Romania’s exports)
and an inability to find new markets in western Europe had catastrophic consequences
for an economy already undermined by several decades of mismanagement and
inefficiency under Ceausș escu.

Little progress was made between 1991 and 1996 in solving the pressing economic
problems left over from the Ceausș escu era. The elections of 1992 brought no significant
political change, and the country continued to be governed by Iliescu and former
communists. In a sense, they governed by default, because in the 1940s and early 1950s
the noncommunist political class had been destroyed or forced into exile. Yet democracy
prevailed as party politics returned to something like the give-and-take of the interwar
years, and a variety of opinions could be expressed in a diverse newspaper press and
even on television and radio, where government influence was strong.

Iliescu pursued closer relations with western Europe, and in November 1992 his
government introduced the economic reforms, including price liberalization,
recommended by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to bring
Romania in line with other emerging market economies. The result was soaring inflation
(reaching about 300 percent) and rising unemployment. Deteriorating living conditions,
mounting corruption, and the inability of the DNSF—renamed the Party of Social
Democracy in Romania (Partidul Democratșiei Sociale din Romaâ nia; PDSR) in 1993—to
revive the economy and ensure essential social services led to widespread unrest and
strikes. In 1996 Iliescu lost the presidency to Emil Constantinescu, the leader of the
Democratic Convention of Romania (Conventșia Democratağ din Romaâ nia; CDR), whose

24
party had formed a centre-right coalition with the Social Democratic Union (Uniunea
Social Democratağ ; USD) and the Hungarian Democratic Union of Romania (Uniunea
Democratağ a Maghiarilor din Romaâ nia; UDMR). In 1997 the former monarch Michael,
whom the communists had forced to abdicate in 1947, returned to Romania after 50
years in exile.

Prime Minister Victor Ciorbea quickly sought to restructure and privatize the economy,
and the new government had some success in alleviating tensions between Romanians
and Hungarians. However, continued economic recession—the economy contracted by
more than 15 percent between 1996 and 2000—and corruption led to a collapse of
support for the CDR. As a result, Iliescu was returned to power in the elections of 2000.
The following year, the ruling PDSR was reorganized as the Social Democratic Party
(Partidul Social Democrat; PSD). In 2004 it was ousted from power by another centre-
right coalition of parties, including the Democratic Party (Partidul Democrat; PD), whose
Traian Bağ sescu was elected president.

In the first years of the 21st century, gross domestic product (GDP) began showing
positive growth, inflation fell, and privatization was accelerated. In March 2004 Romania
entered the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and in January 2007 it joined the
European Union (EU).

wikipedia

After the Communist leader Nicolae Ceausș escu was overthrown in the Romanian
Revolution of December 1989, the National Salvation Front (FSN) took power, led by Ion
Iliescu. The FSN transformed itself into a political party and overwhelmingly won the
general election of May 1990, with Iliescu as president. These first months were marked
by violent protests and counter-protests, involving among others the coal miners of the
Jiu Valley.

The government undertook a programme of free market economic reforms and

privatisation, following a gradualist line rather than shock therapy. Economic reforms
have continued, although there was little economic growth until the 2000s. Social
reforms soon after the revolution included easing of the former restrictions on

25
contraception and abortion. Later governments implemented further social policy
changes.

Political reforms have been based on a new democratic constitution adopted in 1992.
The FSN split that year, beginning a period of coalition governments that lasted until
2000, when Iliescu's Social Democratic Party (now the Party of Social Democracy in
Romania, PDSR), returned to power and Iliescu again became president, with Adrian
Nağ stase as Prime Minister. This government fell in the 2004 elections amid allegations of
corruption, and was succeeded by further unstable coalitions which have been subject to
similar allegations. During the period Romania has become more closely integrated with
the West, becoming a member of NATO in 2004 and of the European Union in 2007.

1990-1996

In the aftermath of the revolution, several parties which claimed to be successors of pre-
World War II parties were formed. The most successful were the Christian-Democratic
National Peasants' Party, the National Liberal Party (PNL) and the Romanian Social
Democrat Party (PSDR). Their leadership was made of former political prisoners of the
1950s, repatriated eé migreé s and people which had not been affiliated with the
Communist Party. As a reaction, the FSN declared it would participate in the elections as
a political party. The announcement triggered a series of anti-government
demonstrations in Bucharest. The already tense situation was aggravated by press
campaigns. The newspapers, assuming either a strong pro-government or strong pro-
opposition stance, issued attacks and tried to discredit the opposing side. The FSN,
having a better organisational structure, and controlling the state administration, used
the press still controlled by the state in its own advantage. FSN also organised counter-
manifestations, gathering the support of the blue-collar workers in the numerous
factories of Bucharest. As the anti-government protesters started to charge the
Parliament, more groups of workers from around the country poured into Bucharest to
protect the fragile government. The most notable among these groups where the coal
miners of the Jiu Valley, known in Romania for their 1977 strike against the Ceausș escu
regime. The workers attacked the offices of opposition parties, however the government
intervened and succeeded in re-establishing the order. These event were to be known as
the first Mineriad.

26
On 28 February, less than a month later, another anti-government demonstration in
Bucharest ended again with a confrontation between demonstrators and coal miners.
This time, despite the demonstrators' pleas for non-violence, several people started
throwing stones at the Government building. Riot police and army forces intervened to
restore order, and on the same night, 4,000 miners rushed into Bucharest. This incident
is known as the Mineriad of February 1990.

Presidential and parliamentary elections were held on 20 May 1990. Iliescu won with
almost 90% of the popular vote and thus became the first elected President of Romania.
The FSN also secured more than two-thirds of the seats in Parliament. Petre Roman, a
professor at the Polytechnic University of Bucharest, son of Communist official and
veteran of the Spanish Civil War. The new government, which included some former low-
key members of the Communist party, promised the implementation of some free
market reforms.

During the spring 1990 electoral campaign, the opposition parties organised a massive
sit-in protest in down-town Bucharest, later known as the Golaniad. After the FSN won
an overwhelming majority, most of the Bucharest protesters dispersed, however less
than a hundred chose to remain in the square. The police efforts to evict them and re-
establish traffic in central Bucharest two weeks after the elections was met with
violence, and several state institutions were attacked (among them the Bucharest Police
and the Interior Ministry). The freshly elected president, Ion Iliescu, issued a call to
Romania's population to come and defend the government from further attacks. The
main group to answer the call were the coal miners of Jiu Valley, leading to the June 1990
Mineriad. The miners and other groups physically confronted the demonstrators and
forcibly cleared University Square. After the situation calmed down, president Iliescu
publicly thanked the miners for their help in restoring order in Bucharest, and requested
their return to the Jiu Valley. The general national and international media portrayal of
the miners involvement in these events have been disputed by the miners, who claimed
that most of the violence was perpetrated by government agents that were agitating the
crowds; these claims, and a growing public suspicion of the sequence and orchestration
of events, led to Parliamentary and other inquiries.[1][2] Parliamentary inquiries
showed that members of the government intelligence services were involved in the
instigation and manipulation of both the protesters and the miners,[2] and later, in June

27
1994, a Bucharest court found two former Securitate officers guilty of ransacking and
stealing $100,000 from the house of a leading opposition politician.[1]

In December 1991, a new constitution was drafted and subsequently adopted, after a
popular referendum. March 1992 marked the split of the FSN into two groups: the
Democratic National Salvation Front (FDSN), led by Ion Iliescu and the Democrat Party
(PD), led by Petre Roman. Iliescu won the presidential elections in September 1992 by a
clear margin, and his FDSN won the general elections held at the same time. With
parliamentary support from the nationalist National Unity Party of Romanians (PUNR),
Greater Romania Party (PRM), and the ex-communist Socialist Workers' Party (PSM), a
new government was formed in November 1992 under Prime Minister Nicolae Vağ cağ roiu,
an economist and former bureaucrat during the Ceausș escu administration. The
government took some limited steps towards the liberalisation of the market, started a
privatisation program through management employee buyouts and sought to further
relations with the Euro-Atlantic structures (the EEC/EU and NATO). The FDSN changed
its name to Party of Social Democracy in Romania (PDSR) in July 1993 after the merger
with several smaller parties. This coalition dissolved before the November 1996
elections. This coincided with the bankruptcy of the Caritas pyramid scheme, a major
scandal at the time in Romania.

1996–2000

Emil Constantinescu of the Democrat Convention of Romania (CDR) won the second
round of the 1996 presidential elections by a comfortable margin of 9% and thus
replaced Iliescu as chief of state. (see: Romanian election, 1996)

PDSR won the largest number of seats in Parliament, but was unable to form a viable
coalition. Constituent parties of the CDR joined the Democratic Party (PD), the National
Liberal Party (PNL) and the Hungarian Democratic Union of Romania (UDMR) to form a
centrist coalition government, holding 60% of the seats in Parliament. This coalition of
sorts frequently struggled for survival, as decisions were often delayed by long periods
of negotiations among the involved parties. Nevertheless, this coalition was able to
implement some reforms. The new coalition government, under prime minister Victor
Ciorbea remained in office until March 1998, when Radu Vasile (PNTș CD) took over as
prime minister. The period was marked by frequent quarrels inside the coalition,

28
dubious bankruptcy of several major banks, and a general economic downturn.
Deteriorating living conditions provoked a new mineriad in 1999. After several battles
with the police on the road towards Bucharest, Radu Vasile succeeded in convincing
miners' leader Miron Cozma to back down, and send the miners home. A political
independent, Mugur Isağ rescu, the governor of the National Bank, eventually replaced
Radu Vasile as head of the government, helping stabilise the Romanian economy
significantly affected by the previous governments.

2000–2004

Iliescu's Social Democratic Party, now renamed the Party of Social Democracy in
Romania (PDSR), returned to power in the 2000 elections, and Iliescu won a second
constitutional term as the country's president. Adrian Nağ stase became the Prime
Minister of the newly formed government. The opposition frequently accused the
government of corruption and attempts to control the press. The government was also
accused of allowing local elected leaders of the PSD to gain significant influence over the
administration of their region, which allegedly used the newly found power for personal
interests. Nevertheless, the Romanian economy witnessed the first years of growth after
the 1989 revolution. The government also started several projects for social housing,
restarted the construction of the motorway connecting Bucharest to Romania's main
port, Constanţa, and began the construction of a motorway across the western region of
Transylvania. These projects however only had limited success.

In the aftermath of the 2001 September 11 attacks, Romania backed the US on its "war
on terrorism", giving overflight rights to the USAF during the US invasion of Afghanistan.
The country's military also actively participated both in the NATO-led International
Security Assistance Force and the US-led Operation Enduring Freedom. In 2004,
Romania was finally accepted as a full member of NATO. The Nağ stase government also
took steps towards European integration. The government successfully finalised
negotiations with the European Union on most subjects, and 2007 was set as a tentative
date for admission into the Union.

29
2004–2007

Presidential and parliamentary elections took place again on 28 November 2004. No

political party was able to secure a viable parliamentary majority. There was no winner
in the first round of the presidential elections. Finally, the joint PNL-PD candidate, Traian
Bağ sescu, won the second round on 12 December 2004 with 51% of the vote and thus
became the third post-revolutionary president of Romania.

The PNL leader, Cağ lin Popescu-Tağ riceanu, was assigned the difficult task of building a
coalition government excluding the PSD. In December 2004, the new coalition
government (PD, PNL, PUR and UDMR) under prime minister Tağ riceanu was sworn in.
Soon disputes appeared between the parties of the coalition. Prime minister Tağ riceanu,
leader of the PNL, and president Bağ sescu, constitutionally independent but generally
regarded as de facto leader of the PD, accused each other of supporting illegitimate
business interests. The PUR left the coalition after Bağ sescu declared that the party's
participation in the coalition was an "immoral solution", leaving the government with
limited support in the Parliament. The frequent disputes between the prime-minister
and the president also caused a faction of the PNL supportive of Bağ sescu to split and
form the Liberal Democratic Party (Romania). Romania joined the European Union,
alongside Bulgaria, on 1 January 2007.

YUGOSLAVIA AND ITS SUCCESSORS

Breakup

Though the 1974 Constitution reduced the power of the federal government, Tito's
authority substituted for this weakness until his death in 1980.

After Tito's death on 4 May 1980, ethnic tensions grew in Yugoslavia. The legacy of the
Constitution of 1974 was used to throw the system of decision-making into a state of
paralysis, made all the more hopeless as the conflict of interests had become
irreconcilable. The Albanian majority in Kosovo demanded the status of a republic in the
1981 protests in Kosovo while Serbian authorities suppressed this sentiment and
proceeded to reduce the province's autonomy.

30
In 1986, the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts drafted a memorandum addressing
some burning issues concerning the position of Serbs as the most numerous people in
Yugoslavia. The largest Yugoslav republic in territory and population, Serbia's influence
over the regions of Kosovo and Vojvodina was reduced by the 1974 Constitution.
Because its two autonomous provinces had de facto prerogatives of full-fledged
republics, Serbia found that its hands were tied, for the republican government was
restricted in making and carrying out decisions that would apply to the provinces. Since
the provinces had a vote in the Federal Presidency Council (an eight-member council
composed of representatives from the six republics and the two autonomous provinces),
they sometimes even entered into coalition with other republics, thus outvoting Serbia.
Serbia's political impotence made it possible for others to exert pressure on the 2 million
Serbs (20% of the total Serbian population) living outside Serbia.

Serbian communist leader Slobodan Milosš evicé sought to restore pre-1974 Serbian
sovereignty. After Tito's death, Milosevic made his way to becoming the next superior
figure and political official for Serbia.[24] Other republics, especially Slovenia and
Croatia, denounced this move as a revival of greater Serbian hegemonism. Through a
series of moves known as the "anti-bureaucratic revolution", Milosš evicé succeeded in
reducing the autonomy of Vojvodina and of Kosovo and Metohija, but both entities
retained a vote in the Yugoslav Presidency Council. The very instrument that reduced
Serbian influence before was now used to increase it: in the eight-member Council,
Serbia could now count on four votes at a minimum: Serbia proper, then-loyal
Montenegro, Vojvodina, and Kosovo.

As a result of these events, ethnic Albanian miners in Kosovo organised the 1989 Kosovo
miners' strike, which dovetailed into ethnic conflict between the Albanians and the non-
Albanians in the province. At around 80% of the population of Kosovo in the 1980s,
ethnic-Albanians were the majority. With Milosevic gaining control over Kosovo in 1989,
the original residency changed drastically leaving only a minimum amount of Serbians
left in the region.[24] The number of Slavs in Kosovo (mainly Serbs) was quickly
declining for several reasons, among them the ever-increasing ethnic tensions and

31
subsequent emigration from the area. By 1999 the Slavs formed as little as 10% of the
total population in Kosovo.

Meanwhile, Slovenia, under the presidency of Milan Kucš an, and Croatia supported the
Albanian miners and their struggle for formal recognition. Initial strikes turned into
widespread demonstrations demanding a Kosovan republic. This angered Serbia's
leadership which proceeded to use police force, and later even the Federal Army was
sent to the province by the order of the Serbia-held majority in the Yugoslav Presidency
Council.

In January 1990, the extraordinary 14th Congress of the League of Communists of

Yugoslavia was convened. For most of the time, the Slovenian and Serbian delegations
were arguing over the future of the League of Communists and Yugoslavia. The Serbian
delegation, led by Milosš evicé , insisted on a policy of "one person, one vote", which would
empower the plurality population, the Serbs. In turn, the Slovenes, supported by Croats,
sought to reform Yugoslavia by devolving even more power to republics, but were voted
down. As a result, the Slovenian and Croatian delegations left the Congress and the all-
Yugoslav Communist party was dissolved.

The constitutional crisis that inevitably followed resulted in a rise of nationalism in all
republics: Slovenia and Croatia voiced demands for looser ties within the Federation.

Following the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, each of the republics held multi-
party elections in 1990. Slovenia and Croatia held the elections in April since their
communist parties chose to cede power peacefully. Other Yugoslav republics—especially
Serbia—were more or less dissatisfied with the democratisation in two of the republics
and proposed different sanctions (e.g. Serbian "customs tax" for Slovenian products)
against the two, but as the year progressed, other republics' communist parties saw the
inevitability of the democratisation process; in December, as the last member of the
federation, Serbia held parliamentary elections which confirmed former communists'
rule in this republic.

The unresolved issues however remained. In particular, Slovenia and Croatia elected
governments oriented towards greater autonomy of the republics (under Milan Kucš an
and Franjo Tuđman, respectively), since it became clear that Serbian domination

32
attempts and increasingly different levels of democratic standards were becoming
increasingly incompatible. Serbia and Montenegro elected candidates who favoured
Yugoslav unity.

The Croat quest for independence led to large Serb communities within Croatia rebelling
and trying to secede from the Croat republic. Serbs in Croatia would not accept a status
of a national minority in a sovereign Croatia, since they would be demoted from the
status of a constituent nation of the entirety of Yugoslavia.

Yugoslav wars

Ten-Day War (1991)

The first of the conflicts, known as the Ten-Day War, was initiated by the JNA (Yugoslav
People's Army) on 26 June 1991 after the secession of Slovenia from the federation on
25 June 1991.[35][36]

Initially, the federal government ordered the Yugoslav People's Army to secure border
crossings in Slovenia. Slovenian police and Slovenian Territorial Defence blockaded
barracks and roads, leading to stand-offs and limited skirmishes around the republic.
After several dozen casualties, the limited conflict was stopped through negotiation at
Brioni on 7 July 1991, when Slovenia and Croatia agreed to a three-month moratorium
on secession. The Federal army completely withdrew from Slovenia by 26 October 1991.

Croatian War of Independence (1991–1995)

Fighting in Croatia had begun weeks prior to the Ten-Day War in Slovenia. The Croatian
War of Independence began when Serbs in Croatia, who were opposed to Croatian
independence, announced their secession from Croatia.

After the 1990 parliamentary elections in Croatia, Franjo Tuđman came to power and
became the first President of Croatia. He promoted nationalist policies and had a
primary goal of the establishment of an independent Croatia. The new government
proposed constitutional changes, reinstated the traditional Croatian flag and coat of
arms and removed the term "Socialist" from the title of the republic.[37] In an attempt to
counter changes made to the constitution, local Serb politicians organized a referendum

33
on "Serb sovereignty and autonomy" in August 1990. Their boycott escalated into an
insurrection in areas populated by ethnic Serbs, mostly around Knin, known as the Log
Revolution.[38] Local police in Knin sided with the growing Serbian insurgency, while
many government employees, mostly in police where commanding positions were
mainly held by Serbs and Communists, lost their jobs.[39] The new Croatian constitution
was ratified in December 1990, when the Serb National Council proclaimed the SAO
Krajina.[40]

Ethnic tensions rose, fueled by propaganda in both Croatia and Serbia. On 2 May 1991,
one of the first armed clashes between Serb paramilitaries and Croatian police occurred
in the Battle of Borovo Selo.[41] On 19 May an independence referendum was held,
which was largely boycotted by Croatian Serbs, and the majority voted in favour of the
independence of Croatia.[42][40] Croatia declared independence and dissolved its
association with Yugoslavia on 25 June 1991. Due to the Brioni Agreement, a three-
month moratorium was placed on the implementation of the decision that ended on 8
October.[43]

The armed incidents of early 1991 escalated into an all-out war over the summer, with
fronts formed around the areas of the breakaway SAO Krajina. The JNA had disarmed the
Territorial Units of Slovenia and Croatia prior to the declaration of independence, at the
behest of Serbian President Slobodan Milosš evicé .[44][45] This was aggravated further by
an arms embargo, imposed by the UN on Yugoslavia. The JNA was ostensibly
ideologically unitarian, but its officer corps was predominantly staffed by Serbs or
Montenegrins (70 percent).[46] As a result, the JNA opposed Croatian independence and
sided with the Croatian Serb rebels. The Croatian Serb rebels were unaffected by the
embargo as they had the support of and access to supplies of the JNA. By mid-July 1991,
the JNA moved an estimated 70,000 troops to Croatia. The fighting rapidly escalated,
eventually spanning hundreds of square kilometers from western Slavonia through
Banija to Dalmatia.[47]

Border regions faced direct attacks from forces within Serbia and Montenegro. In August
1991, the Battle of Vukovar began, where fierce fighting took place with around 1,800
Croat fighters blocking JNA's advance into Slavonia. By the end of October, the town was
almost completely devastated from land shelling and air bombardment.[48] The Siege of

34
Dubrovnik started in October with the shelling of UNESCO world heritage site
Dubrovnik, where the international press was criticised for focusing on the city's
architectural heritage, instead of reporting the destruction of Vukovar in which many
civilians were killed.[49] On 18 November 1991 the battle of Vukovar ended after the
city ran out of ammunition. The Ovcš ara massacre occurred shortly after Vukovar's
capture by the JNA.[50] Meanwhile, control over central Croatia was seized by Croatian
Serb forces in conjunction with the JNA Corps from Bosnia and Herzegovina, under the
leadership of Ratko Mladicé .[51]

In January 1992, the Vance Plan proclaimed UN controlled (UNPA) zones for Serbs in
territory claimed by Serbian rebels as the Republic of Serbian Krajina (RSK) and brought
an end to major military operations, though sporadic artillery attacks on Croatian cities
and occasional intrusions of Croatian forces into UNPA zones continued until 1995. The
fighting in Croatia ended in mid-1995, after Operation Flash and Operation Storm. At the
end of these operations, Croatia had reclaimed all of its territory except the UNPA Sector
East portion of Slavonia, bordering Serbia. Most of the Serb population in the reclaimed
areas became refugees, and these operations led to war crimes trials by the ICTY against
elements of the Croatian military leadership in the Trial of Gotovina et al. Generals Ante
Gotovina and Mladen Markacš were found guilty of "war crimes and crimes against
humanity" in the first instance verdict,[52] but were acquitted on appeal in 2012.[53]
The areas of "Sector East", unaffected by the Croatian military operations, came under
UN administration (UNTAES), and were reintegrated to Croatia in 1998 under the terms
of the Erdut Agreement.[54]

In 2007, Milan Marticé , former president of RSK, was sentenced to 35 years imprisonment
as part of a joint criminal enterprise against the non-Serb population of Croatia.[55]
Milan Babicé , the first President of RSK, pleaded guilty and was sentenced by the ICTY to
13 years in prison.[56]

Bosnian War (1992–1995)

In the 1980s the rapid decline of the Yugoslav economy led to widespread public
dissatisfaction with the political system. This attitude, together with the manipulation of
nationalist feelings by politicians, destabilized Yugoslav politics. Independent political
parties appeared by 1989. In early 1990 multiparty elections were held in Slovenia and

35
Croatia. When elections were held in Bosnia and Herzegovina in December, new parties
representing the three national communities gained seats in rough proportion to their
populations. A tripartite coalition government was formed, with the Bosniak politician
Alija Izetbegovicé leading a joint presidency. Growing tensions both inside and outside
Bosnia and Herzegovina, however, made cooperation with the Serb Democratic Party, led
by Radovan Karadzš icé , increasingly difficult.

In 1991 several self-styled “Serb Autonomous Regions” were declared in areas of Bosnia
and Herzegovina with large Serb populations. Evidence emerged that the Yugoslav
People’s Army was being used to send secret arms deliveries to the Bosnian Serbs from
Belgrade (Serbia). In August the Serb Democratic Party began boycotting the Bosnian
presidency meetings, and in October it removed its deputies from the Bosnian assembly
and set up a “Serb National Assembly” in Banja Luka. By then full-scale war had broken
out in Croatia, and the breakup of Yugoslavia was under way. Bosnia and Herzegovina’s
position became highly vulnerable. The possibility of partitioning Bosnia and
Herzegovina had been discussed during talks between the Croatian president, Franjo
Tudjman, and the Serbian president, Slobodan Milosš evicé , earlier in the year, and two
Croat “communities” in northern and southwestern Bosnia and Herzegovina, similar in
some ways to the “Serb Autonomous Regions,” were proclaimed in November 1991.
When the European Community (EC; later succeeded by the European Union)
recognized the independence of Croatia and Slovenia in December, it invited Bosnia and
Herzegovina to apply for recognition also. A referendum on independence was held
during February 29–March 1, 1992, although Karadzš icé ’s party obstructed voting in most
Serb-populated areas and almost no Bosnian Serbs voted. Of the nearly two-thirds of the
electorate that did cast a vote, almost all voted for independence, which President
Izetbegovicé officially proclaimed on March 3, 1992.

Independence and war

Attempts by EC negotiators to promote a new division of Bosnia and Herzegovina into

ethnic “cantons” during February and March 1992 failed: different versions of these
plans were rejected by each of the three main ethnic parties. When Bosnia and
Herzegovina’s independence was recognized by the United States and the EC on April 7,
Bosnian Serb paramilitary forces immediately began firing on Sarajevo, and the artillery

36
bombardment of the city by Bosnian Serb units of the Yugoslav army began soon
thereafter. During April many of the towns in eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina with large
Bosniak populations, such as Zvornik, Focš a, and Visš egrad, were attacked by a
combination of paramilitary forces and Yugoslav army units. Most of the local Bosniak
population was expelled from these areas, the first victims in the country of a process
described as ethnic cleansing. Although Bosniaks were the primary victims and Serbs
the primary perpetrators, Croats were also among the victims and perpetrators. Within
six weeks a coordinated offensive by the Yugoslav army, paramilitary groups from Serbia,
and local Bosnian Serb forces brought roughly two-thirds of Bosnian territory under
Serb control. In May the army units and equipment in Bosnia and Herzegovina were
placed under the command of a Bosnian Serb general, Ratko Mladicé .

From the summer of 1992, the military situation remained fairly static. A hastily
assembled Bosnian government army, together with some better-prepared Bosnian
Croat forces, held the front lines for the rest of that year, though its power was gradually
eroded in parts of eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Bosnian government was
weakened militarily by an international arms embargo and by a conflict in 1993–94 with
Bosnian Croat forces. But later in 1994 Bosnian Croats and Bosniaks agreed to form a
joint federation.

Courtesy of the ICTY

The United Nations (UN) refused to intervene in the Bosnian conflict, but UN Protection
Force (UNPROFOR) troops did facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid. The
organization later extended its role to the protection of a number of UN-declared “safe
areas.” However, the UN failed to protect the safe area of Srebrenica in July 1995, when
Bosnian Serb forces perpetrated the massacre of more than 7,000 Bosniak men.

Several peace proposals during the war failed, largely because the Bosnian Serbs—who
controlled about 70 percent of the land by 1994—refused to concede any territory. In
February 1994, in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s first-ever use of force, NATO
fighters shot down four Bosnian Serb aircraft that were violating the UN-imposed no-fly
zone over the country. Later that year, at the UN’s request, NATO launched isolated and
ineffective air strikes against Bosnian Serb targets. But following the Srebrenica
massacre and another Bosnian Serb attack on a Sarajevo marketplace, NATO undertook

37
more concentrated air strikes late in 1995. Combined with a large-scale Bosniak-Croat
land offensive, this action led Bosnian Serb forces to agree to U.S.-sponsored peace talks
in Dayton, Ohio, U.S., in November. Serbian Pres. Slobodan Milosš evicé represented the
Bosnian Serbs. The resulting Dayton Accords called for a federalized Bosnia and
Herzegovina in which 51 percent of the land would constitute a Croat-Bosniak
federation and 49 percent a Serb republic. To enforce the agreement, formally signed in
December 1995, a 60,000-member international force was deployed.

It was originally estimated that at least 200,000 people were killed and more than
2,000,000 displaced during the 1992–95 war. Subsequent studies, however, concluded
that the death toll was actually about 100,000.

____________________________________

In 1992, conflict engulfed Bosnia and Herzegovina. The war was predominantly a
territorial conflict between the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina chiefly supported by
Bosniaks, the self-proclaimed Bosnian Serb entity Republika Srpska, and the self-
proclaimed Herzeg-Bosnia, who were led and supplied by Serbia and Croatia
respectively, reportedly with a goal of the partition of Bosnia.[citation needed]

The Yugoslav armed forces had disintegrated into a largely Serb-dominated military
force. Opposed to the Bosnian-majority led government's agenda for independence, and
along with other armed nationalist Serb militant forces, the JNA attempted to prevent
Bosnian citizens from voting in the 1992 referendum on independence.[57] This did not
succeed in persuading people not to vote and instead the intimidating atmosphere
combined with a Serb boycott of the vote resulted in a resounding 99% vote in support
for independence.[57]

On 19 June 1992, the war in Bosnia broke out, though the Siege of Sarajevo had already
begun in April after Bosnia and Herzegovina had declared independence. The conflict,
typified by the years-long Sarajevo siege and Srebrenica, was by far the bloodiest and
most widely covered of the Yugoslav wars. Bosnia's Serb faction led by ultra-nationalist
Radovan Karadzš icé promised independence for all Serb areas of Bosnia from the majority-
Bosniak government of Bosnia. To link the disjointed parts of territories populated by
Serbs and areas claimed by Serbs, Karadzš icé pursued an agenda of systematic ethnic

38
cleansing primarily against Bosnians through massacre and forced removal of Bosniak
populations.[58]

At the end of 1992, tensions between Bosnian Croats and Bosniaks rose and their
collaboration fell apart. In January 1993, the two former allies engaged in open conflict,
resulting in the Croat–Bosniak War.[59] In 1994 the US brokered peace between
Croatian forces and the Bosnian Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina with
the Washington Agreement. After the successful Flash and Storm operations, the
Croatian Army and the combined Bosnian and Croat forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina,
conducted an operation codenamed Operation Mistral to push back Bosnian Serb
military gains.[60]

Together with NATO air strikes on the Bosnian Serbs, the successes on the ground put
pressure on the Serbs to come to the negotiating table. Pressure was put on all sides to
stick to the cease-fire and negotiate an end to the war in Bosnia. The war ended with the
signing of the Dayton Agreement on 14 December 1995, with the formation of Republika
Srpska as an entity within Bosnia and Herzegovina being the resolution for Bosnian Serb
demands.[citation needed]

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the United States reported in April 1995 that 90
percent of all the atrocities in the Yugoslav wars up to that point had been committed by
Serb militants.[61] Most of these atrocities occurred in Bosnia. In 2004, the ICTY ruled
that the Srebrenica massacre constituted genocide.[62] In May 2013, in a first-instance
verdict, the ICTY convicted six Herzeg-Bosnia Officials for their participation in a joint
criminal enterprise against Muslim population in Bosnia and Herzegovina.[63] On 24
March 2016, Radovan Karadzš icé , former president of Republika Srpska, was found guilty
of genocide in Srebrenica, war crimes and crimes against humanity and sentenced to 40
years' imprisonment. On 22 November 2017, Ratko Mladicé , former Chief of Staff of the
Army of the Republika Srpska, was sentenced to life in prison by ICTY for 10 charges, one
of genocide, five of crimes against humanity and four of violations of the laws or customs
of war.

Kosovo War (1998–1999)

39
After September 1990 when the 1974 Yugoslav Constitution had been unilaterally
repealed by the Socialist Republic of Serbia, Kosovo's autonomy suffered and so the
region was faced with state organized oppression: from the early 1990s, Albanian
language radio and television were restricted and newspapers shut down. Kosovar
Albanians were fired in large numbers from public enterprises and institutions,
including banks, hospitals, the post office and schools.[64] In June 1991 the University of
Prisš tina assembly and several faculty councils were dissolved and replaced by Serbs.
Kosovar Albanian teachers were prevented from entering school premises for the new
school year beginning in September 1991, forcing students to study at home.[64]

Later, Kosovar Albanians started an insurgency against Belgrade when the Kosovo
Liberation Army was founded in 1996. Armed clashes between the two sides broke out
in early 1998. A NATO-facilitated ceasefire was signed on 15 October, but both sides
broke it two months later and fighting resumed. When the killing of 45 Kosovar
Albanians in the Racš ak massacre was reported in January 1999, NATO decided that the
conflict could only be settled by introducing a military peacekeeping force to forcibly
restrain the two sides. After the Rambouillet Accords broke down on 23 March with
Yugoslav rejection of an external peacekeeping force, NATO prepared to install the
peacekeepers by force. The NATO bombing of Yugoslavia followed, an intervention
against Serbian forces with a mainly bombing campaign, under the command of General
Wesley Clark. Hostilities ended 2½ months later with the Kumanovo Agreement. Kosovo
was placed under the governmental control of the United Nations Interim
Administration Mission in Kosovo and the military protection of Kosovo Force (KFOR).
The 15-month war had left thousands of civilians killed on both sides and over a million
displaced.[65]

Insurgency in the Preševo Valley (1999–2001)

The Insurgency in the Presš evo Valley was an armed conflict between the Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia and the ethnic-Albanian insurgents[66][67][68] of the Liberation
Army of Presš evo, Medveđa and Bujanovac (UÇPMB).[69] There were instances during
the conflict in which the Yugoslav government requested KFOR support in suppressing
UÇPMB attacks since they could only use lightly armed military forces as part of the

40
Kumanovo Treaty that ended the Kosovo War, which created a buffer zone so the bulk of
the Yugoslav armed forces could not enter.[70]

Yugoslav president Vojislav Kosš tunica warned that fresh fighting would erupt if KFOR
units did not act to prevent the attacks that were coming from the UÇPMB.[71]

Insurgency in the Republic of Macedonia (2001)

The insurgency in the Republic of Macedonia was an armed conflict in Tetovo which
began when the ethnic Albanian National Liberation Army (NLA) militant group began
attacking the security forces of the Republic of Macedonia at the beginning of February
2001, and ended with the Ohrid Agreement. The goal of the NLA was to give greater
rights and autonomy to the country's Albanian minority, who make up 25.2% (54.7% of
the population in Tetovo) of the population of Macedonia.[72][73] There were also
claims that the group ultimately wished to see Albanian-majority areas secede from the
country,[74] although high-ranking NLA members have denied this.[72]

Slovenia

With independence secured, Slovenia adopted a democratic constitution on December

23, 1991. The following year Kucš an became independent Slovenia’s first democratically
elected president. Slovenia reoriented its politics and economy toward western Europe
and forged closer bonds with the countries of the European Union (EU). Over the next
decade the economy grew quickly, and Slovenia enjoyed political stability. Kucš an was
reelected in 1997, and from 1992 to 2002 (except for a brief period) the government was
headed by Prime Minister Janez Drnovsš ek, who succeeded Kucš an as president in 2002.
For part of the period Slovenia had tense relations with two of its neighbours—
confronting Croatia over territorial rights in the Bay of Piran and sovereignty over
certain inland villages and at odds with Italy regarding that country’s pursuit of
concessions for some 160,000 Italians who were expelled from Slovenia after 1945.
There were also disputes with the Roman Catholic Church involving the church’s role in
Slovenia’s educational system and the return of church properties that had been
nationalized by the communist government.

41
Throughout the 1990s Slovenia, with the support of all major political parties, had
pursued membership in both the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the EU. In
2003, following invitations to join from both organizations, Slovenes overwhelmingly
endorsed membership, and Slovenia became a full member of both organizations in
2004.

Slovenia adopted the euro in 2007 and during the first half of 2008 was the first
postcommunist country to hold the EU presidency. In September 2008 the centre-left
Social Democrats narrowly won parliamentary elections, thereby ending four years of
government by the centre-right Slovenian Democratic Party. The government of Prime
Minister Borut Pahor collapsed in September 2011, when members of his centre-left
coalition withdrew in a disagreement over pension reform. The subsequent election,
held in December 2011, was won by Positive Slovenia, a new centre-left party led by
Ljubljana Mayor Zoran Jankovicé . Having secured 28 of the 90 seats in Slovenia’s
parliament, Positive Slovenia lacked the numbers to form a government on its own, and
Jankovicé began coalition talks with various parties. Those efforts foundered, and a
centre-right coalition government was eventually formed by Janez Jansš a of the Slovenian
Democratic Party. Named prime minister in February 2012, Jansš a introduced a series of
austerity measures that were intended to reduce Slovenia’s budget deficit. Tens of
thousands of protesters took to the streets to demonstrate against the proposals as the
Slovene economy struggled with climbing unemployment and a frozen banking sector. A
string of corruption scandals further eroded support for the Jansš a government
throughout 2012, and the ruling coalition slowly disintegrated. In February 2013 the
parliament held a vote of no-confidence that ousted Jansš a and installed Alenka Bratusš ek
of Positive Slovenia as prime minister. She was the first woman to hold that office.

Croatia

In May and August 1995 two Croatian military offensives regained control of western
Slavonia and central Croatia from rebel Serbs. Croatia was disappointed, however, when
in November the U.S.-brokered Dayton Accords failed to provide a clear timetable for the
return of eastern Slavonia to Zagreb’s control. In 1996 Slobodan Milosš evicé , Serbia’s
president and the effective leader of the rump Yugoslavia, agreed to give up claims to
eastern Slavonia. Yugoslav troops then withdrew from the region under a UN mandate,

42
and Yugoslavia established full diplomatic relations with Croatia. Croatia recovered full
sovereignty over eastern Slavonia in 1998, and, with the withdrawal of UN troops from
the Prelavka Peninsula in 2002, Croatia finally had full control of its territory.

Tudjman died in December 1999, and Stipe Mesicé , who had broken with the HDZ over
Tudjman’s autocratic rule, was elected president in February 2000. Mesicé quickly moved
to cut down corruption and to improve Croatia’s relations with its neighbours, but he
failed to deliver on promises of early entry to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO) or the European Union (EU). Croatia continued to suffer deep economic and
political divisions, particularly over cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal
for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), which indicted several Croatian generals who,
according to many Croats, had heroic wartime reputations.

With the success of the HDZ in the 2003 parliamentary elections, Croatia’s broad-based
coalition government fell, and HDZ leader Ivo Sanader became prime minister of a new
centre-right government. In 2004 Croatia became an official EU candidate, but
negotiations were postponed in 2005 after the ICTY raised concerns about the country’s
commitment to bringing war criminals to justice. EU officials also questioned Croatia’s
dedication to eliminating corruption. By the following year, however, several key
suspects had been arrested or tried for war crimes, and the government had adopted a
strong anticorruption strategy. These developments bolstered hopes that Croatia could
join the EU by the end of the decade. Meanwhile, the country’s economy, helped by the
spectacular growth of tourism, began to improve. The status of the much-reduced Serb
minority also was boosted by the inclusion of an ethnic Serb in the cabinet of the HDZ-
led coalition government that came to power in 2008. On April 1, 2009, NATO officially
welcomed Croatia as a member of the alliance.

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Postwar Bosnia and Herzegovina

An election in September 1996 produced a tripartite national presidency chaired by

Izetbegovicé and an ethnically apportioned national legislature dominated by nationalist
parties. Karadzš icé had been indicted for war crimes and was prohibited from being a
candidate, though he retained some support among Bosnian Serbs into the 21st century.

43
(He eluded capture until his arrest in Belgrade in July 2008.) The national government
was largely responsible for foreign affairs, and the internationally appointed Office of the
High Representative—established under the Dayton Accords and later granted
overriding executive powers (the so-called Bonn Powers)—oversaw the implementation
of the peace agreement and acted as the final authority. Meanwhile, the two parts of the
republic, the Bosniak-Croat Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republika
Srpska (Bosnian Serb Republic), were largely autonomous, each having its own
assembly.

Over the next several years the country experienced an uneasy peace. It received
extensive international assistance, but the economy remained in shambles. Much of the
workforce was unemployed—about 50 percent in the Federation and about 70 percent
in the Republika Srpska. By the early 21st century, however, projects funded by the
World Bank had succeeded in reconstructing much of the country’s infrastructure, and
some political and economic reforms were implemented. In the course of the regional
economic boom of 2006–08, unemployment in the country fell to less than 30 percent.As
European bank credit and foreign direct investment took the place of declining
international aid, rates of economic growth averaged 6 percent. Although the
international financial crisis that began in 2008 did affect the economy, it had less of an
impact in Bosnia and Herzegovina than elsewhere in the Balkans, as the country’s
current account and state budget deficits were relatively small. Regional relations also
improved in the early 21st century. In both the Croat and Serb communities, calls for
breaking away from Bosnia and Herzegovina to unite with Croatia and Serbia declined in
the face of faded interest from both of those states. Relations with Croatia in particular
warmed in 2010, following Croatian Pres. Ivo Josipovicé ’s apology for his country’s
military actions in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the warfare of the early 1990s.

Nonetheless, other problems have continued to delay the internal integration of Bosnia
and Herzegovina, leaving in doubt the possibility of accession into the European Union
(EU). Although the danger of renewed violence has remained minimal, the stalemate
between the Federation and the Republika Srpska has persisted. Struggles over a
potential new constitution, including disputed provisions for a common police force,
have steadfastly resisted resolution. The international Office of the High Representative
has remained in place, despite repeated attempts to end its authority and transfer its

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advisory functions to an EU office. Underlying all these difficulties are the continuing
troubled relations between Bosniaks and Bosnian Serbs. Their leaders’ respective
demands for a federation with some central powers in Sarajevo and a loose
confederation offering the right of secession have been diametrically opposed. Their
disagreement has frustrated repeated efforts to draft a new constitution to replace the
Dayton agreement. Some promise for progress did emerge from the elections of October
2010. Although the hard-line president of the Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik, was
reelected, the Bosniak presidency passed to Bakir Izetbegovicé , the son of Bosnia and
Herzegovina’s first president, Alija Izetbegovicé . Attracting younger voters to his
campaign for reconciliation, he joined Bosnian Croat Pres. ZŽ eljko Komsš icé as a moderating
figure.

Serbia

The most serious threat to both the internal stability and the international rehabilitation
of Serbia during the late 1990s was the deteriorating situation in the province of Kosovo.
In 1989 Ibrahim Rugova, leader of the Kosovar Albanians, had initiated a policy of
nonviolent protest against the loss of provincial autonomy. The refusal of the
international community to address the situation in Kosovo in Dayton lent support to the
arguments of Rugova’s more radical opponents; the changes they demanded could not
be secured by peaceful means. A new organization, the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA),
emerged during 1996, and its sporadic attacks on Serbian police and officials steadily
escalated, leading by 1998 to a substantial armed uprising in the Drenica region. The
Serbian military effort to reassert control over the region was accompanied by atrocities
such as the destruction of over 500 villages and the killing of an estimated 10,000
civilians, and some 200,000 refugees fled the area. Concern grew in the international
community, but this did not deter the Yugoslav army and Serbian forces from launching a
major offensive against the KLA in February 1999. Negotiations that had quickly been
convened in Rambouillet, France, to resolve the crisis broke down and were followed in
March by NATO air strikes against Serbian military targets and infrastructure. The
Serbian response to the NATO action, however, was to drive out all of the Kosovar
Albanians, pushing nearly 900,000 refugees into neighbouring Albania, Macedonia, and
Montenegro.

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In June 1999, after weeks of air strikes, the Yugoslav government accepted a proposal for
peace that had been mediated by representatives from Russia and Finland. Federal
troops quickly evacuated the region, along with most of Kosovo’s Serb civilians, while
nearly all of the displaced Kosovar Albanians returned. UN peacekeeping forces were
deployed to the region, which then came under UN administration.

The federation of Serbia and Montenegro

In the late 1990s secessionists gained ground in Montenegro and called for
independence from the Yugoslav federation and their much-larger Serbian neighbour.
Despite the popularity of independence within Montenegro, international authorities,
particularly those in the European Union (EU), believed that further political instability
in Yugoslavia might unleash violence once again, especially in Bosnia and Herzegovina
and Kosovo. In 2001 Montenegro’s pro-independence governing coalition announced
that it would hold a referendum on independence, but in 2002 Javier Solana, the EU’s
foreign minister, was able to forestall the plebiscite, brokering an agreement between
Yugoslav Pres. Vojislav Kosš tunica, Montenegrin Pres. Milo Djukanovicé , and Serbian Prime
Minister Zoran Djindjicé that would maintain the federation. The accord, which renamed
the country Serbia and Montenegro, called for a loose federation between the two
republics. The federal government would have jurisdiction over foreign and defense
policy and coordinate international economic relations, but the republics would retain
autonomy in other spheres. It also allowed each republic to hold a referendum on
independence after the agreement had been in effect for three years. The historic pact
was ratified in early 2003 by the Serbian, Montenegrin, and Yugoslav parliaments, and in
February the name Yugoslavia was once again relegated to the annals of history. In turn,
the federation of Serbia and Montenegro ceased to exist in 2006. Montenegro held a
referendum in the spring of that year that resulted in its formal declaration of
independence and its separation from Serbia on June 3.

Independent Serbia

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During the breakup of Serbia and Montenegro, the contentious matter of Kosovo’s future
remained at the forefront of Serbian politics. Talks begun in 2005 resulted in a plan—
proposed by the UN envoy Martti Ahtisaari in 2007 and supported by the United States
and most members of the EU—that called for independence for Kosovo, albeit under
international supervision. Serbia rejected the plan, however, and months of further talks
between Serbian and Kosovar leaders were inconclusive. With the support of the EU and
the United States, Kosovo declared independence in February 2008. Serbia, backed by
Russia, China, and several members of the EU, refused to recognize Kosovo as a
sovereign country.

In the wake of Kosovo’s secession, Serbia’s governing coalition—composed of the pro-

European Democratic Party (Demokratska Stranka; DS) and its offshoot, the centre-right
Democratic Party of Serbia (Demokratska Stranka Srbije; DSS)—collapsed. For a
European Serbia, a pro-EU bloc led by Serbian president and DS leader Boris Tadicé , won
nearly 40 percent of the vote in the May 2008 parliamentary elections. The nationalist
Serbian Radical Party, however, captured nearly 30 percent, making the formation of a
pro-EU governing coalition less certain. Nevertheless, in July the pro-EU alliance joined
with a Socialist-led bloc of parties to form a new government whose stated goal was to
obtain EU candidacy for Serbia. Accordingly, in December 2009 the Serbian government
officially applied for EU membership.

The newly formed Serbian Progressive Party (Srpska Napredna Stranka; SNS), which had
split off from the Radicals in 2008, had by 2010 joined the DS in supporting Serbia’s
accession to the EU. In March 2010 the Serbian parliament voted to condemn the 1995
Srebrenica massacre of Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims). It stopped short of calling the
killings an act of genocide, but the vote helped to advance Serbia’s EU candidacy.
Domestic support for EU accession rose following the lifting of the Schengen visa
restrictions on travel to EU member countries in December 2009. This rise in support
coincided with the beginning of the ratification process of a Stabilisation and Association
Agreement between the EU and Serbia.

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Montengero

Relations between Montenegro and Serbia began to deteriorate at the end of 1992.
Montenegrins reacted negatively when an attempt to settle the dispute over
Montenegro’s frontier with Croatia in the Prevlaka Peninsula was headed off by the
Milosš evicé regime in Belgrade (though the matter was later settled). Montenegrins also
became increasingly frustrated with Serbia’s unequal access to power in the new
federation and impatient, in particular, with its failure to address economic reform.
Disagreements over the conduct of the wars in Bosnia and Croatia led to the withdrawal
of Montenegrin units from the Yugoslav army.

Matters came to a head in 1997, when the ruling party, the Democratic Party of Socialists
of Montenegro (Demokratska Partija Socijalista Crne Gore; DPS), split into factions that
either supported or opposed Milosš evicé , who had ascended from the Serbian to the
Yugoslav presidency in July. After Milosš evicé ’s proteé geé and close ally Momir Bulatovicé was
defeated by Milorad Ðjukanovicé in Montenegro’s presidential elections that October,
Ðjukanovicé began to steer an increasingly independent course of action, and within a
year Montenegrin representatives had been withdrawn from most of the federal
institutions. Ðjukanovicé was also critical of the Serbian policy toward Kosovo, fearing
that once Milosš evicé had settled accounts with the rebelling Kosovar Albanians,
Montenegro would be forced to submit to a firmer hand from Belgrade. As the Kosovo
conflict escalated, however, Ðjukanovicé ’s active opposition to Serbian policy did not
entirely save Montenegro from military action carried out by the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO) against Yugoslavia in 1999: the port of Bar as well as
communication facilities and military targets in the republic were bombed.

Despite widespread support for independence in Montenegro and plans to hold a

referendum on secession in April 2002, Ðjukanovicé negotiated an agreement with
Yugoslav and Serbian authorities in March, calling for Montenegro’s continued
association with Serbia in a virtual federation. The agreement, approved by the Yugoslav
parliament and the Montenegrin and Serbian assemblies in 2003, renamed the country
Serbia and Montenegro, gave wide powers to the governments of Montenegro and

48
Serbia, and allowed each republic to hold a referendum on independence and to
withdraw from the union after three years.

Independence

In a referendum held on May 21, 2006, 55.5 percent of Montenegrins (just over the
necessary threshold of 55 percent) voted to end the federation of Serbia and
Montenegro. On June 3, 2006, Montenegro declared its independence, which was
recognized by the Serbian parliament two days later.

The principal feature of the first years of independence was the economic boom of
2006–08, with growth rates exceeding 6 percent each year. The boom was followed,
however, by a contraction of roughly the same percentage in 2009. Sharp declines in
European bank credit, real estate sales (to Russians in particular), and direct foreign
investment—factors that had been partly responsible for the boom—accounted for the
economic retreat.

Both contributing to the boom and also easing its end in the midst of a broader
international financial crisis was the unchanged political dominance of the Democratic
Party of Socialists. Its leader, Ðjukanovicé , who had been serving as prime minister at the
time of independence, had stepped down in November 2006 but returned to the post in
February 2008. He then led the party, as part of the Coalition for a European
Montenegro, to victory in the parliamentary elections of March 2009. Subsequently, in
consultation with the International Monetary Fund, the government and Montenegro’s
central bank worked to restart the flow of bank credit, keep unemployment from rising,
and reduce both the current-account and state budget deficits.

In the meantime, the successful conclusion of Montenegro’s Stabilisation and Association

Agreement with the European Union (EU) was marked by the lifting in late 2009 of the
restrictive visa requirements for Montenegrins traveling to the Schengen zone, which
included most EU member states. (See Schengen Agreement.) Montenegro’s recognition
of Kosovo’s independence in 2008 troubled relations with Serbia, however, and the
status of Serbs within Montenegro remained unsettled. Continuing controversy over
whether Montenegrin constituted a language separate from Serbian added to the
disquiet. (See also Serbo-Croatian language.) For the government that matter was settled

49
in 2010 when it published a Montenegrin grammatical code and declared Montenegrin
the official language of the country’s broadcasting and education systems.

Montenegro’s relations with the rest of southeastern Europe were promising, but
reviving economic growth in the face of fiscal austerity remained a major domestic
challenge for the country. As part of Montenegro’s continuing efforts to join NATO, in
March 2010 a contingent of Montenegrin soldiers was dispatched to Afghanistan as part
of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force. In November the European
Commission recognized Montenegro’s sustained progress in meeting EU membership
goals when it recommended the country for candidate status. Ðjukanovicé resigned as
prime minister the following month, but he remained head of the DPS and continued to
exert a strong influence on Montenegrin politics. Ðjukanovicé ’s finance minister, Igor
Luksic, succeeded him as prime minister, and Luksic continued his predecessor’s efforts
to achieve greater integration with the rest of Europe and with the West.

Macedonia

In contrast to the other Yugoslav republics, whose efforts to secede from Yugoslavia
provoked campaigns of nationalist violence and ethnic cleansing in the early 1990s, the
Republic of Macedonia was peacefully established as a sovereign and independent state
on September 8, 1991, by a vote of the citizens of Macedonia. Since then Macedonia has
faced many serious challenges on both the domestic and international fronts. Conflict
with the Albanian minority and the dispute with Greece over the name Macedonia have
combined to pose significant threats to much-needed foreign investment and economic
growth. Moreover, while overseeing the demanding transition to a free-market economy,
a succession of Macedonian governments have been bedeviled by corruption and forced
to combat organized crime.

More importantly, however, the Macedonian government has been faced with the
challenge of maintaining peaceful relations between the country’s Orthodox Christian
Macedonian majority and a Muslim Albanian minority that constitutes approximately
one-fourth of the population. A key issue that has proven difficult to resolve has been
balancing Macedonian nationals’ commitment to the preservation of a Macedonian state
with Albanians’ demands for the full rights of citizenship.

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According to the original preamble of the 1991 constitution, the Republic of Macedonia
was established as “a national state of the Macedonian people in which full equality as
citizens and permanent coexistence with the Macedonian people is provided for
Albanians, Turks, Vlachs, Romanies [Roma], and other nationalities.” As a result of long-
standing Albanian grievances over their status as second-class citizens in the republic
and the Albanian insurgency in the northwest of the country that followed the NATO
defeat of Slobodan Milosš evicé ’s Serbia in the Kosovo conflict, in 2001 the preamble of the
Macedonian constitution was recast to reflect a more pluralist perspective. It now refers
to “the citizens of the Republic of Macedonia, the Macedonian people, as well as citizens
living within its borders who are part of the Albanian people, the Turkish people, the
Vlach [Aromani] people, the Serbian people, the Romany people, the Bosniak people.”

Kiro Gligorov, a well-respected veteran of many years of service in the Yugoslav federal
government, deftly guided the republic through its difficult early years as its first
president. A member of the moderate Social Democratic Union of Macedonia (SDSM),
which consisted of former communists and social democrats, he was seriously wounded
in an assassination attempt in 1995. After having turned over the reigns of power to an
acting president for six weeks, he resumed his duties and served as president until 1999.
That year power shifted to the right, and Boris Trajkovski—of the more nationalist
Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization–Democratic Party for Macedonian
National Unity (VMRO-DPMNE)—came to power. In 2004 the presidency shifted to the
SDSM, to Branko Crvenkovski, then in 2009 back to the VMRO-DPMNE in the person of
Gjorge Ivanov. Historically, the Albanian minority has voted as a bloc for ethnic Albanian
parties, and all governments since independence have been coalitions that included an
Albanian party.

In early parliamentary elections in June 2011, the VMRO-DPMNE-led coalition finished

first with 39 percent of the vote but, having captured 56 seats, fell short of an outright
majority. Nonetheless, Nikola Gruevski renewed his governing coalition with the ethnic-
Albanian Democratic Union for Integration (BDI), which took more than 10 percent of
the vote and 15 seats. By garnering nearly 33 percent of the vote, the SDSM increased its
representation considerably to 42 seats. Two other ethnic-Albanian parties also made
their mark: the Democratic Party of Albanians (PDSh), with almost 6 percent of the vote
and 8 seats, and the newly formed National Democratic Revival (RK), with about 3

51
percent and 2 seats. This proved to be a period of extensive political turmoil, which
included a prolonged boycott of the parliament by the SDSM.

Under the EU-mediated agreement that was reached on March 1, 2013, the SDSM
returned to the parliament and agreed to participate in the local elections in return for
discussions about possible parliamentary elections later in the year and the formation of
a special parliamentary committee to investigate the events of December 24, 2012. On
that day SDSM MPs had tried to literally block the adoption of the state budget by
surrounding the speaker of the parliament’s desk. After they were forcibly removed from
the legislature, the ruling VMRO-DPMNE passed the budget by a vote of 64–4, and the
SDSM began its boycott of the parliament.

In response to SDSM demands, changes were made to the election code, and an
agreement was reached to clean up the voter register. Those changes set the stage for
elections in April 2014, in which Ivanov was reelected president and the VMRO-DPMNE
maintained control of the parliament by capturing 42.2 percent of the vote and 61 of the
body’s 123 seats. The SDSM-led coalition won 24.9 percent of the vote and 34 seats; the
BDI finished third with 13.5 percent and 19 seats. International observers acknowledged
the efficient administration of the elections but criticized what they saw as the lack of
separation between state and ruling party. Most SDSM MPs, claiming that fraud had been
committed by the government and the ruling parties, again chose not to take up their
seats in the parliament. Nevertheless, in June, Gruevski’s new government—made up of
the VMRO-DPMNE, its smaller ethnic-Macedonian partner parties, and the BDI—
received a vote of confidence in the parliament.

In early 2015 the opposition alleged that Gruevski and his intelligence chief had initiated
the wiretapping of some 670,000 conversations on about 20,000 telephones from 2007
to 2013. The opposition also began releasing snippets of the recorded conversations that
it said had been leaked by civil servants. The recordings painted a picture of a VMRO-
DPMNE awash in corruption. In the process, a firestorm of political turmoil
overwhelmed the country and forced Gruevski’s resignation in January 2016 as part of
an EU-brokered deal that set the stage for early elections to be held in April. Emil
Dimitriev took over as caretaker prime minister. After being postponed twice, the
elections were held in December 2016.

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In the event, the VMRO-DPMNE appeared to have beaten the SDSM by just over 300
votes in the country’s sixth district. Had that result stood, the VMRO-DPMNE would have
held 51 seats in the 120-seat parliament (to 49 for the SDSM) and been positioned to
form a coalition government. However, voting irregularities in the village of Tearce
meant that its 714 registered voters had to return to the polls on December 25, which
raised the possibility that if enough of them voted for the SDSM, the seat count would
even out at 50 for each of the two parties. In the event, however, the SDSM still came up
short and the VMRO-DPMNE was poised to remain in power. The VMRO-DPMNE,
however, was unable to successfully court the coalition partner it needed to continue to
govern.

A power vacuum ensued, which appeared to be filled in March 2017 when the SDSM
leader Zoran Zaev won the support of ethnic Albanian parties by promising to support
legislation that would extend existing constitutional language rights to make Albanian
the country’s second official language. (An amendment to the constitution in response to
the Ohrid Framework Agreement had made Albanian an official language in
communities where Albanian speakers made up at least 20 percent of the population.)
President Ivanov initially blocked the formation of the new coalition government but
eventually relented to foreign pressure and allowed the new government to be
confirmed in office in late May with Zaev as its prime minister. Nevertheless, ethnic
tensions remained high. When Talat Xhaferi, an ethnic Albanian, was chosen speaker of
the parliament in late April, some 200 Macedonian nationalists invaded parliament and
violently attacked lawmakers.

In January 2018 Zaev made good on his promise and introduced a bill to extend Albanian
as an official language throughout the country. With the VMRO-DPMNE boycotting the
voting, the bill passed with 69 votes in favour. When Ivanov refused to sign the law,
parliament voted on it a second time, in March, and passed it again, this time with 64
votes in favour. Although the Macedonian constitution prohibited a president from
vetoing legislation that had been approved in two separate votes, Ivanov still refused to
sign the legislation, claiming that the proper parliamentary procedure had not been
employed in its passage and that the law would “deepen inter-ethnic tensions and
represents a threat for the inter-ethnic life.”

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In 1999, during the Kosovo conflict, more than 350,000 Kosovar Albanian refugees had
fled to Macedonia, with significant consequences for the republic. Living standards in
Macedonia plummeted, exports declined, and unemployment, already at more than 30
percent before the conflict, rose dramatically—to as high as 40–50 percent, according to
some estimates. Another serious threat to the country’s political stability was posed by
an armed conflict that erupted between an ethnic Albanian military group and
Macedonian security forces in 2001. This conflict was brought to an end in August 2001
by the signing of the Ohrid Framework Agreement, which contained the government’s
promises to make Albanian an official language, to increase autonomy for areas with
large Albanian populations, and to raise the number of Albanians serving in the army
and police as well as in the government. The Macedonian economy gradually recovered
—with slow but steady GDP growth and minimal inflation—until 2009, when it began to
struggle in response to the global financial downturn. In the early 2010s the economy
again rebounded slowly.

In August 2015 Macedonia became the latest flash point in the migrant crisis that
gripped Europe as an increasing number of people fled war and turmoil in the Middle
East and Africa. The daily stream of migrants and refugees entering Macedonia swelled
from 300–400 in May 2015 to 2,000–3,000 in August, which prompted the Macedonian
government to declare a state of emergency on August 21. Human rights groups
castigated Macedonia when its police and military used batons, tear gas, and stun
grenades the following day in an effort to halt the mass of migrants who attempted to
rush into Macedonia across its border with Greece.

By far the greatest challenge for the Republic of Macedonia was Greece’s effort to
prevent its neighbour from gaining international recognition under its constitutional
name, along with blocking Macedonia’s participation in international organizations.
Greece’s attempt to monopolize the name Macedonia prevented the republic from
gaining entry into a variety of international organizations and from enjoying the
economic and political stability that membership in such organizations would provide.
When the Republic of Macedonia declared its independence in 1991, Greece immediately
objected to the name of the new republic, insisting that “Macedonia” had been used by
Greeks since ancient times and that its “appropriation” by the Republic of Macedonia
constituted a “falsification of history” and a revival of territorial claims on Greek

54
Macedonia (Makedonīéa). The Macedonian republic argued in turn that Slavs had lived in
the area for 14 centuries and had used the name Macedonia for hundreds of years.

Responding to the Republic of Macedonia’s attempt to gain recognition from the

European Community (EC; later the European Union), an EC arbitration commission
concluded not only that the newly independent country met all the criteria necessary for
recognition but also that its use of the name Macedonia implied no claims on Greek
territory—the contention of the Greek government. Nevertheless, Greece was able to
prevent EC recognition of the republic. Only by acceding to a provisional designation as
“the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” did Macedonia gain admission to the
United Nations in 1993.

In early 1994, seemingly turning up the pressure on the republic to relinquish its claims
to the name Macedonia, Greece instituted an economic blockade that had dire
consequences for Macedonia. In September 1995, with more and more countries
inveighing for Greece and Macedonia to come to a settlement, the two signed an Interim
Accord. The agreement called for Macedonia to remove the 16-ray Sun or Star of
Verghina—a symbol of the ancient Macedonian royal family that Greece had claimed as a
national symbol—from its flag and to renounce all territorial claims on Greek Macedonia
in return for Greece’s termination of the embargo. Moreover, it was agreed that the
“name issue” would be submitted to UN-sponsored mediation. In 2004 the Republic of
Macedonia was recognized by the United States under its constitutional name. In 2008,
however, Greece violated the Interim Accord by preventing Macedonia from being
invited to become a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), again
raising objections to the republic’s use of the name Macedonia. Nonetheless, UN-
sponsored bilateral negotiations over the name continued.

Finally, in June 2018, Prime Minister Zaev and Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras
announced that an agreement had been reached under which Macedonia would be
known both domestically and internationally as the Republic of North Macedonia
(Macedonian: Severna Makedonija). For the necessary changes to be made to the
Macedonian constitution, however, the new name would have to be approved by the
Macedonian parliament and then put to a referendum in September or October. Should

55
the new name meet with approval on those fronts, it would then require acceptance by
the Greek parliament.

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