Greece–Yugoslavia relations

After the end of World War I Greece perceived Belgrade as a powerful neighbor with potentially hegemonic tendencies in the Balkans.[1] Yugoslav ability to attract support from the great powers, mainly France, created concerns in Athens that Yugoslavia will pressure Greece on the status of Slavic speakers of Greek Macedonia and potentially even the Port of Thessaloniki.[1] Greece was concerned that close ethnic, linguistic and religious links between Yugoslavia and Bulgaria will lead to an alliance. This alliance however did not materialize as Yugoslavia was a status quo state which sought to consolidate success of the South Slavic unification movement while Bulgaria was revisionist state.[2] Similarly to the situation with Kingdom of Serbia in the Second Balkan War, Yugoslavia joined forces with Kingdom of Greece, Kingdom of Romania and Turkey in establishing the Balkan Pact aimed at maintaining the geopolitical status quo. Compared to emotional tensity which Macedonian question enjoyed among Bulgarian elites, dominant Serb (and to a lesser extent Croat and Slovene) elites in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia expressed lesser interest in the issue. Kingdom of Serbia reoriented its expansionist interest towards south (regions with small number of ethnic Serbs) only after the Bosnian Crisis and in fear of encirclement between more powerful Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria. In Yugoslav period southern part of the country was known as the Vardar Banovina.

In May 1945, 4,650 Greek refugees, mostly male members of ELAS, settled in the village of Maglić with the help of Yugoslav government. From 1945 to 1948, it was a sui generis case of Greek extraterritorial jurisdiction.[3] The Yugoslav conflict with the Informbiro saw the Greek community divided between loyalty to Yugoslavia and to the Comintern, and those who supported the latter left the country. The remaining also emigrated to Greek Macedonia eventually, with only a few remaining.

Yugoslav Non-Aligned policy enjoyed significant public support in Greece, especially among individuals and groups critical of too close Greek alignment with west which limited its policies towards Turkey, another NATO member state.[4] Relations between the two countries developed further after the end of the Greek junta in 1974 and electoral victory of PASOK in 1981.