The United Branch Trade Unions "Independence" (Serbian : Ujedinjeni Gradjanski Sindikati "Nezavisnost", UGS) is a trade union federation in Serbia.
The federation was established in 1991, by a group of trade unions which had been founded after the fall of communism in Yugoslavia. The oldest included the Metal Workers' Union, the Independent Media Union, and the Teachers' Union. [1]
The federation was opposed to Slobodan Milosevic, and was persecuted under his presidency. It led major strike in 1998, then moved towards political action. It formed part of the opposition Yugoslav Action Group, with various other civic groups. When Milosevic initially refused to accept defeat in the 2000 Yugoslavian general election, it backed strikes which played a part in forcing him out. [1]
By 2005, the federation claimed a total of 180,000 members. [1]
The Kosovo War was an armed conflict in Kosovo that lasted from 28 February 1998 until 11 June 1999. It was fought between the forces of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which controlled Kosovo before the war, and the Kosovo Albanian separatist militia known as the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). The conflict ended when the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) intervened by beginning air strikes in March 1999 which resulted in Yugoslav forces withdrawing from Kosovo.
The State Union of Serbia and Montenegro or simply Serbia and Montenegro, known until 2003 as the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, FR Yugoslavia (FRY) or simply Yugoslavia, was a country in Southeast Europe located in the Balkans that existed from 1992 to 2006, following the breakup of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The state was founded on 27 April 1992 as a federation comprising the Republic of Serbia and the Republic of Montenegro. In February 2003, it was transformed from a federal republic to a political union until Montenegro seceded from the union in June 2006, leading to the full independence of both Serbia and Montenegro.
The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, commonly referred to as Socialist Yugoslavia or simply Yugoslavia, was a country in Central and Southeast Europe. It was established in 1945 as the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia, following World War II, and lasted until 1992, breaking up as a consequence of the Yugoslav Wars. Spanning an area of 255,804 square kilometres (98,766 sq mi) in the Balkans, Yugoslavia was bordered by the Adriatic Sea and Italy to the west, Austria and Hungary to the north, Bulgaria and Romania to the east, and Albania and Greece to the south. It was a one-party socialist state and federation governed by the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, and had six constituent republics: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia. Within Serbia was the Yugoslav capital city of Belgrade as well as two autonomous Yugoslav provinces: Kosovo and Vojvodina.
The term Greater Serbia or Great Serbia describes the Serbian nationalist and irredentist ideology of the creation of a Serb state which would incorporate all regions of traditional significance to Serbs, a South Slavic ethnic group, including regions outside modern-day Serbia that are partly populated by Serbs. The initial movement's main ideology (Pan-Serbism) was to unite all Serbs into one state, claiming, depending on the version, different areas of many surrounding countries, regardless of non-Serb populations present.
The Brioni Agreement, also known as the Brioni Declaration is a document signed by representatives of Slovenia, Croatia, and Yugoslavia under the political sponsorship of the European Community (EC) on the Brijuni Islands on 7 July 1991. The agreement sought to create an environment in which further negotiations on the future of Yugoslavia could take place. However, ultimately it isolated the federal prime minister Ante Marković in his efforts to preserve Yugoslavia, and effectively stopped any form of federal influence over Slovenia. This meant the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) would focus on combat in Croatia, creating a precedent of redrawing international borders and staking the EC's interest in resolving the Yugoslav crisis.
Vuk Drašković is a Serbian writer and politician. He is the co-founder and former leader of the Serbian Renewal Movement, serving as president from 1990 to 2024. He also served as the war-time Deputy Prime Minister of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1999 during the rule of Slobodan Milošević and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of both Serbia and Montenegro and Serbia from 2004 to 2007.
After a period of political and economic crisis in the 1980s, the constituent republics of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia split apart, but the unresolved issues caused a series of inter-ethnic Yugoslav Wars. The wars primarily affected Bosnia and Herzegovina, neighbouring parts of Croatia and, some years later, Kosovo.
Ante Marković was a Croatian and Yugoslav politician, businessman and engineer. He is most notable for having served as the last Prime Minister of Yugoslavia from 1989 to 1991.
The Socialist Republic of Serbia, previously known as the People's Republic of Serbia, commonly abbreviated as Republic of Serbia or simply Serbia, was one of the six constituent republics of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in what is now the modern day states of Serbia and the disputed territory of Kosovo. Its formation was initiated in 1941, and achieved in 1944–1946, when it was established as a federated republic within Yugoslavia. In that form, it lasted until the constitutional reforms from 1990 to 1992, when it was reconstituted, as the Republic of Serbia within the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. It was the largest constituent republic of Yugoslavia, in terms of population and territory. Its capital, Belgrade, was also the federal capital of Yugoslavia.
Serbian nationalism asserts that Serbs are a nation and promotes the cultural and political unity of Serbs. It is an ethnic nationalism, originally arising in the context of the general rise of nationalism in the Balkans under Ottoman rule, under the influence of Serbian linguist Vuk Stefanović Karadžić and Serbian statesman Ilija Garašanin. Serbian nationalism was an important factor during the Balkan Wars which contributed to the decline of the Ottoman Empire, during and after World War I when it contributed to the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and again during the breakup of Yugoslavia and the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s.
The anti-bureaucratic revolution was a campaign of street protests by supporters of Serbian leader Slobodan Milošević that ran between 1988 and 1989 in Yugoslavia. The protests overthrew the government of the Socialist Republic of Montenegro as well as the governments of the Serbian provinces of Vojvodina and Kosovo, and replaced them with Milošević allies, thereby creating a dominant voting bloc within the Yugoslav presidency council.
The Republic of Serbia was a constituent state of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia between 1992 and 2003 and the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro from 2003 to 2006. With Montenegro's secession from the union with Serbia in June 2006, both became sovereign states in their own right for the first time in nearly 88 years.
The Republic of Montenegro was a constituent federated state of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and then Serbia and Montenegro between 1992 and 2006. The declaration of independence of Montenegro in 2006 ended the ex-Yugoslav state. After the collapse of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY), the remaining republics of Montenegro and Serbia agreed to the formation of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) which officially abandoned communism and nominally endorsed democratic institutions. Montenegro was a constituent republic of the FRY and its successor state until June 2006 when Montenegro declared independence from Serbia and Montenegro following the 2006 Montenegrin independence referendum.
Portuguese-Serbian relations date back to 1882. Portugal has an embassy in Belgrade, and Serbia has an embassy in Lisbon. Despite support by Portugal for the independence of Kosovo, Serbian Prime Minister Mirko Cvetković was keen to improve bilateral cooperation. Also, Portugal is backing Serbia's accession to the European Union (EU).
Slobodan Milošević was a Yugoslav and Serbian politician who was the President of Serbia between 1989–1997 and President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1997 until his оverthrow in 2000. Milošević played a major role in the Yugoslav Wars and became the first sitting head of state charged with war crimes.
The 1989 Kosovo miners' strike was a hunger strike initiated by the workers of the Trepča Mines on 20 February 1989 against the abolition of the autonomy of the Province of Kosovo by the Socialist Republic of Serbia. The strike quickly gained support in Slovenia and Croatia, while in Belgrade protests were held against the Slovenian, Albanian and Croatian leaderships. It eventually ended after the hospitalization of 180 miners and the resignation of the leaders of the League of Communists of Kosovo Rahman Morina, Ali Shukriu and Husamedin Azemi.
The war crimes trial of Slobodan Milošević, the former President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) lasted for just over four years from 2002 until his death in 2006. Milošević faced 66 counts of crimes against humanity, genocide, and war crimes committed during the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s. He pleaded not guilty to all the charges.
The RAM Plan, also known as Operation RAM, Brana Plan, or Rampart-91, was a military plan developed over the course of 1990 and finalized in Belgrade, Serbia, during a military strategy meeting in August 1991 by a group of senior Serb officers of the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) and experts from the JNA's Psychological Operations Department. Its purpose was organizing Serbs outside Serbia, consolidating control of the Serbian Democratic Parties (SDS), and preparing arms and ammunition in an effort of establishing a country where "all Serbs with their territories would live together in the same state." A separate group of undercover operatives and military officers was charged with the implementation of the plan. These people then undertook numerous actions during the Yugoslav Wars that were later described as ethnic cleansing, extermination and genocide.
Dragan Milovanović is a Serbian trade unionist and former politician. From 2001 to 2004, he was Serbia's minister of labour and employment. During his political career, Milovanović was the leader of the Association of Free and Independent Trade Unions and the Labour Party of Serbia.
The Association of Free and Independent Trade Unions is a trade union federation in Serbia that was founded in 1996. The federation has five branches, respectively in industry, traffic and utilities, agriculture and tobacco, public service, and health and social protection. Dragan Milovanović was the federation's president from its founding until 2001, when he resigned to serve as minister of labour and employment in Serbia's government. Ranka Savić has served as the federation's president since 2002.