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Yugoslavia Table of Contents

Yugoslavia

FOREIGN POLICY

YU040601.

Prime Minister Ante Markovic with President George H.W. Bush,
Washington, 1990
Courtesy White House Photography Office

With the exception of the first three postwar years, the foreign policy of Yugoslavia has emphasized balanced relations between East and West and strong links with as many nonaligned nations as possible. As in domestic politics, a primary motivation for this course was to differentiate Yugoslavia from the members of the Soviet Bloc; having made that distinction in all areas by 1952, Tito pragmatically sought commercial and political relations wherever and whenever advantageous. After weathering numerous crises in its relations with both superpowers, Yugoslavia entered the 1990s as titular head of a diminished Nonaligned Movement; political and economic reversals in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union forced Yugoslavia closer to the wealthy West European nations, with the ultimate goal of membership in the European Economic Community ( EEC--see Glossary).

Data as of December 1990