Convention on the association of the Netherlands Antilles with the European Economic Community of the Netherlands, proclaimed in 1954, instituted a Kingdom in which the three parties—the Netherlands, the Netherlands Antilles, and Suriname—participated on basis of equality, the Netherlands in 1957 only negotiated the Treaties of Rome on behalf of itself. A special protocol attached to both the Treaty establishing the European Economic Community and the Treaty establishing the European Atomic Economic Energy Community specifically declared that the Kingdom was entitled to ratify the treaties for the Netherlands and Netherlands New Guinea only, or for the Kingdom as a whole. Both treaties were indeed subsequently ratified for the Netherlands and Netherlands New Guinea
Yugoslavia and the European Economic Community refused the proposal. In June 1991 an EEC mission formed by the foreign ministers of Luxembourg, Italy and the Netherlands visited Belgrade, where they talked with Yugoslav Prime Minister Ante Marković, as well as Zagreb, where they talked with Presidents Milan Kučan of Slovenia and Franjo Tuđman of Croatia. The mission members stated that almost $1 billion in economic aid would be suspended if Yugoslav military offensive continued as well as that the EEC favors the preservation of Yugoslavia as a single entity. Members of the EEC were divided over the importance they should give to the potentially contradictory principles