On this day in 1991, the Parliament (Sabor) of the Republic of Croatia severed all remaining ties with the republics and provinces of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, making Croatia an independent state. That fateful session was held in the basement of a local oil company’s headquarters, because there was a danger of an air attack on the Parliament building. Namely, the nearby Ban’s Court had been targeted by an airstrike the day before, and the Parliament building itself damaged in the attack.
In fact, the Parliament had already declared Croatia an independent and sovereign state on 25 June, but the decision had been put on a three-month moratorium under pressure from the European Community on 7 July (the Brijuni Agreement). The moratorium expired on this day, and there was no further need to delay the declaration of independence. Thus the Parliament stripped all bodies of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia of their legitimacy, and declared the legal acts of any bodies working in the name of the former declaration to be null and void.
