Croatia–Serbia relations


Croatian–Serbian relations are foreign relations between Croatia and Serbia. The two countries established diplomatic relations on 9 September 1996 following the end of Croatian War of Independence.
From 1918 to 1991, both countries were part of Yugoslavia. They now share 241 kilometers of common border. In the 2011 Croatian census, there were 186,633 Serbs living in Croatia. In the 2011 Serbian census, there were 57,900 Croats living in Serbia. Smaller lasting disputes include border disputes over the Island of Šarengrad and the Island of Vukovar.
Serbian and Croatian, official languages in Serbia and Croatia respectively, are mutually intelligible, being standard varieties of Serbo-Croatian language.
Croatia has an embassy in Belgrade and a general consulate in Subotica. Serbia has an embassy in Zagreb and two general consulates, one in Rijeka and one in Vukovar.

History

During Duke Muncimir of Croatia's reign, the exiled Prince Petar Gojniković of the Serbian House of Vlastimirović stayed in Croatia during his exile and later returned to Rascia and seized power there. Prince Petar exiled his cousins who were pretenders to the Grand Princely throne: Pribislav, Bran and Stefan whom Muncimir received and put under his protection.
With the nation-building process in the mid-19th century, first Croatian–Serbian tension appeared. Serbian minister Ilija Garašanin's Načertanije claimed lands that were inhabited by Bulgarians, Macedonians, Albanians, Montenegrins, Bosnians, Hungarians and Croats as part of a Greater Serbia. Garašanin's plan also includes methods of spreading Serbian influence in the claimed lands. He proposed ways to influence Croats, who Garašanin regarded as "Serbs of Catholic faith". This plan considered surrounding peoples to be devoid of national consciousness. Vuk Karadžić partly denied the existence of Croatians and Croatian language, counting them as "Catholic Serbs" except those who speak Chakavian dialect. Croatia was at the time a kingdom in Habsburg monarchy, with Dalmatia and Istria being separate Habsburg Crown lands. Ante Starčević, an advocate of Croatian unity and independence, who was both anti-Habsburg and anti-Serbian in outlook envisioned the creation of a Greater Croatia that would include territories inhabited by Bosniaks, Serbs, and Slovenes, considering Bosniaks and Serbs to be Croats who had been converted to Islam and Orthodox Christianity, while considering the Slovenes to be "mountain Croats". Starčević argued that the large Serb presence in territories claimed by a Greater Croatia was the result of recent settlement, encouraged by Habsburg rulers, and the influx of groups like Vlachs who took up Orthodox Christianity and identified themselves as Serbs. Starčević admired Bosniaks because in his view they were Croats who had adopted Islam in order to preserve the economic and political autonomy of Bosnia and Croatia under the rule of the Ottoman Empire. After Austro-Hungary occupied Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1878 and Serbia gained its independence from Ottoman Empire, Croatian and Serbian relations deteriorated as both sides had pretensions on Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 1902 major anti-Serb riots in Croatia were caused by reprinted article written by Serb Nikola Stojanović that was published in the publication of the Serbian Independent Party from Zagreb titled Do istrage vaše ili naše in which denying of the existence of Croat nation as well as forecasting the result of the "inevitable" Serbian-Croatian conflict occurred.

Interwar period

In World War I, Croats fought in the Austro-Hungarian army against Serbia, while Croatian general Ivan Salis-Seewis was a military governor of occupied Serbia. Some Croat POWs volunteered to fight in Thessaloniki battlefront with Serbian army.
On 29 October 1918 the Croatian Sabor declared independence from Austria-Hungary and decided to join the newly formed State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs which on 1 December 1918 entered into union with the Kingdom of Serbia and formed the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. Initial Croatian zeal for the new state faded away as the republican view of a new state was ignored and especially since the concept of "Greater Serbia" was put in practice during the early 1920s, under the Yugoslav premiership of Nikola Pašić. Using tactics of police intimidation and vote rigging, he diminished the role of the oppositions to his government in parliament, creating an environment for centralization of power in the hands of the Serbs in general and Serbian politicians in particular. Police violence further alienated Croats, who began to ask for their own state. On 20 June 1928 Stjepan Radić and five other Croat politicians were shot in the national assembly in Belgrade by a Serb deputy, enraged by continuous Croatian claims that they were 'exploited by Serbia and that Serbia is treating them like a colony'. This led to the royal dictatorship of King Alexander in January 1929. The dictatorship formally ended in 1931 when the king imposed a more unitarian constitution and changed the name of the country to Yugoslavia. The HSS, now led by Vladko Maček, continued to advocate federalization of Yugoslavia, resulting in the Cvetković–Maček Agreement of August 1939 and the autonomous Banovina of Croatia.

World War Two

In April 1941, Yugoslavia was occupied by Germany and Italy who created a puppet-state called the Independent State of Croatia which was governed by the pro-Axis Ustaša movement. The Ustashe sought to create an ethnically pure Greater Croatia by cleansing Serbs as well as Jews and Roma from its territory. The Ustashe regime systematically murdered around 300,000-350,000 Serbs, as a part of a genocide campaign. Approximately 100,000 people, primarily Serbs, Jews and Roma but also anti-fascist Croats, and others were murdered in Jasenovac concentration camp alone. The predominantly Serb Chetniks, a Yugoslav Royalist and Serbian nationalist movement and guerrilla force, engaged in war crimes and ethnic cleansing of Muslims and Croats in order to establish a Greater Serbia, while also supporting the reinstatement of a Serbian monarchy. Some historians view these crimes as constituting genocide. The most recent estimates on the number of Muslims and Croats deaths caused by the Chetniks in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina range from 47,000 to 65,000. Following the victory of Yugoslav Partisans, who were led by the Croatian communist Josip Broz Tito, the Ustaša and the Chetniks were defeated. Yugoslav communists abolished the monarchy and established one-party socialist republic and a federation governed by the League of Communists of Yugoslavia. Newly formed socialist Yugoslav state under Tito's benevolent dictatorship was made up of six socialist republics including SR Serbia and SR Croatia.

Yugoslav wars

The period of 1991 to 1995 is marked as the Croatian War of Independence. It was preceded by SANU Memorandum which was published by Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts in 1986 and which had assumed creation of Greater Serbia, consisting of most of Croatian territory and whole Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia. For this purpose, Serbs living in Croatia stimulated by Serbian leadership established Republic of Serbian Krajina, which captured third of the whole territory of Croatia, which was occupied by the remnants of the Serbian-controlled Yugoslav People's Army from 1991 to 1992 and was supported by the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia through military support. The reason for the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to support the Republic of Serbian Krajina against Croatian forces were common interests in upholding the status quo of keeping ethnic Serbs of former Yugoslav territories united, either within the extant Yugoslav state or as satellite states serving as proxies to Belgrade. The war killed some 20,000 people from both sides. An estimated 170,000 to 250,000 Croats and other non-Serbs were expelled from parts of Croatia overrun by Serb forces and hundreds of Croatian and other non-Serbian civilians were killed. During the Croatian military's Operation Storm in August 1995, around 250,000 Serbs fled from their homes and hundreds of Serb civilians were killed.

Post-war relations

After the end of the Croatian War of Independence, the two countries established diplomatic relations on 9 September 1996. Croatia filed a genocide lawsuit against Serbia at the International Court of Justice in 1999, and after Zagreb declined requests to withdraw it, Belgrade filed a countersuit in 2010. Both lawsuits were dismissed on 3 February 2015, as International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia found no evidence to support either claim. The court ruled that both sides undoubtedly committed crimes, but they were not committed with genocidal intent so they are not considered genocide according to the Court's definition of genocide.

Border dispute

Due to the meandering of the Danube, the eastern border of Baranja with Serbia according to cadastral delineation is not followed, as each country controls territory on their side of the main river flow.
Further south, near Vukovar and near Šarengrad, there are two river islands which have been part of SR Croatia but during the war they came under Serbian control.
Croatia is asking that the islands be returned because of the Badinter Arbitration Committee decision from 1991 that all internal borders between Yugoslav republics have become international. Serbia's position is that the natural border between the countries is the middle of the main flow of Danube, which would make the islands Serbian territory. Military occupation of the islands ended recently after an incident in which Serbian military opened fire and arrested the mayor of Vukovar Vladimir Štengel with 19 other Croatian civilians and 8 children who were going to visit Zvezdan Kisić, the mayor of the Serbian town Bačka Palanka. These islands are now under Serbian police control.

Consulate General of Serbia in Vukovar

Serbia established a diplomatic mission in Vukovar, Croatia on 5 February 1998, twenty days after the end of the reintegration process of Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Syrmia into Croatia, which was the end of the Croatian War of Independence. The consulate is responsible for five Slavonian counties: Vukovar-Syrmia County, Osijek-Baranja, Brod-Posavina, Požega-Slavonia and Virovitica-Podravina County.
Due to the huge interest of local citizens, in the beginning consulate operated also in Beli Manastir. The consulate at the end of the war played a very positive role in the life of the local Serbian minority in the city and region.
Representatives of the consulate are frequent interlocutors of local and national media when it comes to issues of protection and promotion of Serbian identity in the Danube region. Consulate organizes and participates in various cultural and educational projects and humanitarian actions, some of which are: celebration of the signing of Erdut Agreement, showing of documentary films, donation of equipment, organizing concerts etc.
On the occasion of 150 anniversary of the birth of Nikola Tesla, consulate was, in conjunction with the U.S. Embassy in Zagreb, co-financed Days of Nikola Tesla in Osijek.
Over time the consulate achieved close cooperation with minority institutions and organizations such as Joint Council of Municipalities, Eparchy of Osječko polje and Baranja, and Radio Borovo.

Recent developments

In 2005, the Republic of Croatia ratified a bilateral agreement with Serbia and Montenegro on the protection of the Serbian and Montenegrin minority in Croatia and the Croatian national minority in Serbia and Montenegro. However, Serbs continue to face discrimination in public sector employment and the restitution of tenancy rights to social housing vacated during the war.

International organizations

Both countries are full members of the Southeast European Cooperation Process, Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe, Central European Initiative and Southeast European Cooperative Initiative.
Croatia also supports Accession of Serbia to the European Union.

Popular culture

Rivalry in basketball

The big rivalry in basketball started at the FIBA European Championship in 1995. At the time, Croatia was a newly independent state, while Serbia was a federal unit of FR Yugoslavia. Both countries did well in the tournament, with Yugoslavia ranking first. The third-place Croatian team caused an international scandal when they walked off the medal stand and out of the arena just before Serbs and Montenegrins were about to receive their gold medals. Curiously, there hasn't been a single direct game involving the two countries over the course of the championship.
Croatia and Yugoslavia did face each other in a game at EuroBasket 1997. Four seconds before the end of the tense game, Croatian team was leading by two points when Serbian Saša Đorđević took the ball and made a three-pointer, winning the game for Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia went on to win the championship, while Croatia ended up ranking 11th overall.
Afterward, on Euro championship 2001, Croats were heavily beaten by 88:60. Last match on big competitions was at the 2016 Olympics, were Serbia also won 86:83.
This rivalry went on also to clubs. Serbian clubs dominate in regional league, where they won nine times, and Croatian club won only one title. Particularly at the final game of the regional ABA league with Partizan from Serbia and Cibona from Croatia. This time the Croats were leading just 0.6 seconds before the end of the game. When all seemed finished, the Serb from Partizan, Kecman, took the ball and made it from the other side. The Serbian team won again.

Rivalry in football

Rivalries between Croatian and Serbian football contenders became especially famous to the world in the early 1990s, starting with the historic Dinamo Zagreb–Red Star Belgrade riot, which emphasized in some peoples' eyes the breakup of Yugoslavia. The Croatian national football team and the Yugoslav national football team played on only a few occasions—the first being in 1999 for UEFA Euro 2000 qualifying Group 8. Nevertheless, the rivalry between the two teams has been described as one of fiercest in the world. Fourteen years later, for the first time in history, Serbia as an independent country played against the Croatian team on 22 March 2013 in qualification group A of the 2014 FIFA World Cup. The match, which Croatia won 2–0, was closely followed around the world. The football federations of Serbia and Croatia agreed to ban foreign guests fans at the two games because of security concerns. Later, Croatia drew Serbia 1-1 in Belgrade which meant Serbia was eliminated. During the match, Miralem Sulejmani, who was in a goal scoring opportunity, was knocked down by a tactical tackle from Josip Šimunić for which he was given a red card.
Some Serbs, including the tennis star Novak Djokovic, who supported Croatia's national team at the 2018 FIFA World Cup, were publicly criticized by some politicians and media who called them "idiots" and "psychopaths". Vladimir Đukanović, a member of Serbia’s ruling Serbian Progressive Party and Vjerica Radeta, the Vice President of the National Assembly of Serbia, branded Djokovic an "idiot" and said that he should be ashamed of himself for backing their neighbouring country, the former citing the plight of Krajina Serbs.

Croatian stance on Kosovo

Croatia recognized Kosovo as independent and sovereign republic on 19 March 2008.

Diplomatic missions

Croatian ambassadors to Belgrade

;Republic of Croatia
;Republic of Serbia