The Economic Relations of Bosnia–Herzegovina and FYROM with the Other States that Emerged from the Breakup of Yugoslavia Considering the Ohrid and Dayton Agreements: The Phenomenon of Yugonostalgia in Trade and Economic Relations of Those Countries

In the mid-1980s, in the former Yugoslavia, the phenomenon of the rise of nationalism among the ethnic groups that make up the country appeared. The revival of nationalistic passions led to the dissolution of the country in a particularly bloody ethnic conflict in the early 1990s. This process contributed greatly to the appearance in leadership positions of the Yugoslavian government structures of individuals who used the ethnic passions of the people of the country in order to reap personal benefits. The main passions were rooted in events that took place in Yugoslavia during the Second World War, the interwar period and the formation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, which was later renamed the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. To resolve the ethnic conflict in the former Yugoslavia the international community had to intervene militarily in both cases of the conflicts in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo and politically in the conflicts in Bosnia and FYROM in an effort to achieve the Dayton and Ohrid agreements. In the years that followed the dismantling of Yugoslavia into the countries that was created by, a phenomenon appeared among people of different social groups: they felt nostalgic for their life in the years of Yugoslavia; this phenomenon has been termed in literature as “Yugonostalgia”. This study is an attempt to analyze not only the economic and trade relations between Bosnia-Herzegovina and FYROM with the other states which were parts of former Yugoslavia in light of the spirit of the Dayton and Ohrid agreements, but the phenomenon of “Yugonostalgia” as well. Since a large volume of trade of both countries is associated with the states that emerged from the breakup of Yugoslavia, we will consider if this is linked to the political-social climate that was shaped by the two agreements. We will also study if the phenomenon of the strengthened “Yugonostalgia” had obvious effects on the trade or if, instead, the constant and growing trade and economic relations are linked with the socioeconomic structures developed in Yugoslavia. Moreover, both the economic conditions of the degradation period of Yugoslavia and the transition of newcomers to the market economy are going to be examined.