Republic of Montenegro Република Црна Гора Republika Crna Gora |
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Constituent country of Serbia and Montenegro | ||||||
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Anthem Oh, Bright Dawn of May Ој, свијетла мајска зоро Oj, svijetla majska zoro |
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Subdivisions of Serbia and Montenegro:
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Capital | Podgorica | |||||
Government | Parliamentary republic | |||||
President | ||||||
• | 1992–1998 (first) | Momir Bulatović | ||||
• | 2003–2006 (last) | Filip Vujanović | ||||
Prime Minister | ||||||
• | 1992–1998 (first) | Milo Đukanović | ||||
• | 2003–2006 (last) | Milo Đukanović | ||||
Legislature | Parliament | |||||
History | ||||||
• | Established | 28 April 1992 | ||||
• | Constitution adopted | 12 October 1992 | ||||
• | Independence from the State Union | 3 June 2006 | ||||
Area | ||||||
• | 2006 | 13,812 km2(5,333 sq mi) |
The Republic of Montenegro (Serbian: Република Црна Гора / Republika Crna Gora) was a constituent country of Serbia and Montenegro between 1992 and 2006. The declaration of independence of Montenegro in 2006 ended the state union with Serbia.
After the collapse of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY), the remaining republics of Montenegro and Serbia agreed to the formation of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) which officially abandoned communism and endorsed democratic institutions. Montenegro was a constituent republic of the FRY until 2003, when the FRY was reconstituted as the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro, from which Montenegro separated in 2006 as an independent country.
Upon entry into the FRY, Montenegro was led by President Momir Bulatović a former member of the Communist party in Yugoslavia and an ally of Serbian President Slobodan Milošević, whom Bulatović helped gain power during the Anti-Bureaucratic Revolution, in which he and Milošević gained power in their respective republics. In the final years of the SFRY's existence, Bulatović had supported Milošević's demands for a "one-member, one-vote" system in the Communist party congress which would have given numerical superiority to their cohort in the congress. This fostered the collapse of the Communist party and later the SFRY. Bulatović began to show reluctance to remaining in a union with Serbia when countries like Italy offered Montenegro the possibility of quick access into the European Community if Montenegro separated from Yugoslavia. However Bulatovic's brief endorsement of Montenegrin independence ended due to pressure from Serbia. In 1992, Montenegro joined the FRY after a referendum took place on March 1 of that year. In the same year, the capital Titograd (named after former Yugoslav leader Joseph Broz Tito) was renamed to its pre-communist name of Podgorica. In 1993, Montenegro abandoned its former Communist-era flag, and adopted a plain tricolour, similar to Serbia's but longer, and with a lighter blue for its centre stripe, marking a distinction between the two republics which had exactly the same flag during the Communist era. This flag would be in place until 2004.