The Yugoslav parliament voted overwhelmingly yesterday in favour of a plan to abolish the Balkan federation and replace it with a looser union between its last remaining members, Serbia and Montenegro.
The move clears the way to work out the details of a new constitution from the blueprint, negotiated by the EU in March. The west is keen to head off a drive by Montenegro for independence that it fears would destabilise the region.
The parliaments of Serbia and Montenegro already had approved the plan, which would consign Yugoslavia to history after more than seven decades of existence in various forms. But analysts and diplomats still expect protracted negotiations over the details.
The upper house passed the plan by 23 votes to six against and the lower house approved it by 74 to 23.
"Many people will see this day as the day when Yugoslavia died, because the name is no longer mentioned in the agreement - the new state is called Serbia and Montenegro," the Serbian Deputy Prime Minister and Yugoslav deputy, Mr Zarko Korac, said.
The two republics would have broad autonomy within one internationally recognised state with its own president, parliament, cabinet and army to replace the federal institutions.
The original plan, signed on March 14th in Belgrade, envisaged a new constitution would be ready for approval by the three parliaments by the end of June. However, many analysts, diplomats and politicians say interpretations of the blueprint and ambitions for the new union already differ so widely that the prospect of agreement by then is remote.
The Speaker of the Lower House, Mr Dragoljub Micunovic, said he expected the new draft constitution to be finished by the autumn. Yugoslavia would cease to exist when it is adopted.
Pro-independence Montenegrin parties, for whom the scheme is at best a necessary evil to retain Western favour, set great store by a clause that allows them to revive independence plans in three years. But pro-Yugoslav parties there want close links to Serbia, and a directly elected parliament with a strong mandate.
For now, at least, the EU and NATO Secretary-General Mr Javier Solana have headed off Montenegrin independence. They feared that a planned breakaway referendum would encourage further violent redrawing of borders in the Balkans.
Yugoslavia - meaning southern Slavs - was formed at the end of the first World War, itself triggered by the independence aspirations of the south Slavs of the Balkans, with Serbia leading a unification movement.
The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria in Sarajevo triggered the first World War. At the time, the only independent south Slav states were Serbia - then incorporating Macedonia - and Montenegro. Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina were under the rule of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which crumbled at the end of the first World War. In 1915 Serbia and Montenegro were overrun by the Central Powers and Serbian troops retreated to the Greek island of Corfu.
In July 1917 representatives of the south Slavs proclaimed a kingdom under Peter I of Serbia, and Montenegro adhered in 1918. In December 1918, the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes was proclaimed, and it was renamed Yugoslavia in 1929.
Yugoslavia joined the Axis pact in 1941, and Germany soon invaded. After the second World War, Tito came to power, but Yugoslavia was expelled from the Moscow-led Cominform in 1948.
Yugoslavia later became a leading light in the international non-aligned movement. After Tito's death in 1980, a collective presidency was introduced. In 1991 the Yugoslav republics of Croatia and Slovenia declared independence. With the rapid departure of four of Yugoslavia's original six constituent republics, the remaining two - Serbia and Montenegro - formed a new federation in 1992. Now the name "Yugoslavia" is being consigned to history, replaced by the new Federation of Serbia and Montenegro.