Misappropriated Property of Former Yugoslavia: Economic Basis of the Serbian Aggression against Croatia

In his essay, the author deals with two topics: disadvantageous effects of the common Yugoslav state on the Croatia economy and misappropriation of the Yugoslav federal state property by Serbia. In the first Yugoslavia (between the two World Wars) Croatia was economically handicapped through different political practices; the monetary reform, taxing imparities, Sebian colonization in Eastern Slavonia and disadvantageous treatment in infrastructure construction. In the socialist Yugoslavia this handicap was continued primarily through a policy of industrial disinvestment. The economic reforms by Prime Minister Ante Marković in the late 1980s could not save the Yugoslav federation, they even attempted to increase centralization, which was inacceptable for Croatia. In the second part of the article the author offers a calculation of federal state property (mainly foreign currency reserves and military property) misapproriated by Serbia. On the basis of IMF methodology in calculating Croatian state share in the Yugoslav GNP the author estimates that the net value of the Croatian part of the federal property amounts to 17 billion USD