"This article reviews the experience of the dissolution of Yugoslavia from the perspective of trade union organisations and actors, both in Yugoslavia itself and the international confederations. The author played a leading role in many of the meetings arranged as a means of keeping dialogue alive between worker representatives, and offers a personal view of the conclusions and achievements. Trade union organisations might have been hostages to the forces that drove the war but the indefatigable efforts of the international confederations to establish a succession of forums, seminars and other platforms at which integration and co-operation might take place in an atmosphere of respect have greatly assisted a subsequent coming together among people who realised that they had not been at war with each other but among whom substantial suspicions and tensions remained. Solidarnost, a platform for trade union organisation, is a tribute to the strategy of the ETUC, and offers scope for a regional reconnection as well as the hope that trade unions might be part of the answer to the continuing problems caused by the war."

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