National self-determination as a legitimate way towards European Union - The case of former Yugoslavia

Abstract

Ten years after, it seems that the disintegration processes are still not over. The new case is Montenegro and the mentioned above scenario is almost identical. We could just hope that some lessons are learned and the solution will be peaceful. Still, since all former Yugoslav republics are now heading toward European Commonwealth, one could reasonably ask whether it was necessary to abandon, at the price of bloody ethnic conflicts, multicultural Yugoslavia and replace it with a much larger community, in which their loyalty to nation would be soon substituted with the 'constitutional patriotism' (Verfassungspatriotismus) - 'a common loyalty to a common constitutional order, regardless of differences of language, ethnic background and the rest.'.