BELGRADE, March 14: Serbia and Montenegro signed a landmark accord on Thursday, creating a new union that relegates the name “Yugoslavia” to history and postpones Montenegro’s bid for independence from Serbia at least three years.

Under the EU-brokered accord, the two partners in the rump Yugoslavia agreed to stick together in a new federation called “Serbia and Montenegro” but give their respective governments much wider powers of autonomy.

Under the deal, Montenegro’s pro-independence leadership agreed to remain in the union with Belgrade until at least 2005, after which time it may opt out.

“The document sets the basis for redefining relations between Serbia and Montenegro,” said Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica told reporters. “It is a political accord and an agreement which sets completely new outlines for new relations.”

Kostunica was speaking at a joint news conference in Belgrade, the Serbian and Yugoslav federal capital, with his Montenegrin counterpart Milo Djukanovic and the European Union’s foreign policy chief Javier Solana, who mediated in the negotiations.

Montenegro’s demands for full independence from the more powerful Serbia had sparked fears of yet another Balkans conflict. As an incentive to the republics to stick together in a new union, the European Union held out the promise of an association agreement that could pave the way to full membership of the 15-nation bloc and trade privileges.

“Today is not the end of anything. It is a beginning of a new chapter which we are going to write together and which will lead you to be members of the EU,” Solana told the news conference.

The new state has yet to choose its symbols, flag and anthem.

In addition to presidents, parliaments and governments in each of the two republics, the union will continue to have a central, federal authority. But the latter’s powers will be much reduced.

The union will continue to have a seat at the United Nations and other international organisations, alternately selecting representatives to those bodies from its two constituent republics.

The federation’s name, “Yugoslavia” has been scrapped, dealing a final blow to the kingdom of the Yugoslavs, or “Slavs from the south”, which was created by King Alexandar Karadjordjevic in 1929 and whose demise began with its descent into ethnic bloodshed in the 1990s.—AFP