REPUBLIC OF SERBIA Official name: Republika Srbija (Republic of Serbia) International organisations:The Council of Europe, The European Union, The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, The United Nations Location: South Eastern Europe Borders: Albania, Bosnia and Herzogovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania (Serbia has a border with Albania only via Kosovo, which is under international administration.) Coastline: None Land area: 88,361 Km2 (including Kosovo) Population: 9,400,000 (including Kosovo) Ethnicity: Serbs are 63% of the population. The largest ethnic minorities are the Albanians (17%), mainly in Kosovo, and the Hungarians (3.5%). There are small minorities of Romanians, Germans, Roma and Turks. If Kosovo becomes independent, Serbians will be 83% of the population. Languages: Over 70% of the population speak Serbian. Albanian is spoken in Kosovo. Hungarian is spoken in the Vojvodina. Religion: Over 60% of the population are at least nominally Orthodox Christians. About 15%, mainly Kosovo Albanians, are Sunni Moslems. There is a 4% Catholic minority.

Form of government: Parliamentary democratic republic. The Kosovo region of Serbia is under international administration.
Capital: Belgrade (Beograd)
Constitution: The Constitution of Serbia came into effect in 1990, when Serbia was still part of a federal Yugoslav entity.
Head of state: The President, elected by the people. Boris Tadic has been President since June 2004.
Head of government: The Prime Minister, appointed by the President.
Legislature: The National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia (Narodna skupština Republike Srbije), has 250 members, elected by proportional representation for four-year terms.
Electoral authority: None known
Freedom House rating: Political Rights 3, Civil Liberties 2
(This rating related to former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.)

Political history

The mediaeval kingdom of Serbia, which covered most of the Balkans, was destroyed by the Ottomans at the Battle of Kosovo in 1389. A Serbian state did not reappear until 1817, when the Ottomans recognised an autonomous Serb principality. Serbia became a kingdom in 1882.

Following the Balkan Wars of 1912, Serbia annexed Macedonia. After the First World War, Serbia became the core of a new state, Yugoslavia, incorporating the former Habsburg territories of Croatia, Slovenia and Bosnia as well as the Kingdom of Montenegro. This state was destroyed by the German invasion of 1941. Yugoslavia was reconstituted by the Communists led by Josip Broz Tito in 1945, with Serbia as one of six constituent republics. Within Serbia, the Albanian-majority district of Kosovo and the Hungarian area of Vojvodina became autonomous regions.

Tito died in 1980, and Yugoslavia became a looser federal state. With the collapse of Communist rule in 1990, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia all seceded amid bitter civil wars. Serbia under the diehard Communist Slobodan Milosevic sought to prevent these secessions, and then tried to expel the Albanian population from Kosovo. In 1999 Serbia was heavily bombed by NATO until Milolevic agreed to withdraw, and Kosovo was placed until international administration.

In 2000 Milosevic was overthrown after attempting to rig presidential elections, and Vojislav Kostunica became president of Yugoslavia. He sought to prevent the secession of Montenegro, which would leave Serbia isolated and landlocked, by negotiating a loose federation. In February 2003 Yugoslavia ceased to exist and an entity called Serbia and Montenegro came into existence. Kostunica twice tried to be elected President of Serbia, but was frustrated by an opposition boycott which held the turnout below 50%, rendering the elections invalid. In May 2006 Montenegro voted to become independent, a decision which Serbia accepted, thus also becoming independent.

The major parties are Kostunica's Democratic Party of Serbia, the semi-Communist Serb Socialist Party and the extreme nationalist Serb Radical Party.

Kosovo is under the administration of the United Nations Mission in Kosovo. The main political parties are the Albanian majority Democratic League of Kosovo and Democratic Party of Kosovo and the Serb minority League of Return.