Conference paper
ECONOMIC COMPONENT OF THE ILLUSION OF CENTRALITY
Jakov Sirotković
; HAZU, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
The SANU Memorandum of 1986 is the ultimate manifesto of the Greater Serbian idea; in the economic department, it is manifested in the form of vying for investments into Serbia, of the elimination of the “political and economic domination of Slovenia and Croatia”, and of “disencumbering Serbia from contributing to the Federation fund”. Its authors put the blame for the alleged lagging of Serbia exclusively on Slovenia and Croatia, and thus consequently make them responsible for all unsound economic policies in the former Yugoslavia. Particularly venomous charges are reserved for the Constitution of 1974, which makes for the independence (“secession”) of Slovenia and Croatia, viewed as a precursor of a possible catastrophe. These two republics, they believe, are “morally obliged” to aid the development of the underdeveloped republics, since Serbia has sacrificed most, and the price of that has been its own thwarted development. Two issues are central to Serbian economists: the 1961-1965 fiveyear plan and the system of financing a faster development of the underdeveloped regions (the Federation Fund). They demand that Serbia should be completely exempted from aiding the underdeveloped and, at the same time, extra measures for a faster development of Serbia proper should be decreed. The impossibility of solving these problems in this dictated manner brought about the economic disintegration of Yugoslavia, followed by the strategy of violence which ended in the aggression. Nevertheless, the Serbian political elite thinks that their political and economic standing has been enhanced and thus, in the negotiations about the succession, they flaunt the Memorandum propositions, and continue to live under the illusion that the Greater Serbia is a viable option, both economically and politically.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
105723
URI
Publication date:
18.6.1997.
Visits: 1.669 *