MORATORIUM ON AGRARIAN DEBTS - A CHRONOLOGY OF ONE LONGLASTING PROVISORIUM

Original scientific paper
Autor: Prof. Dragana Gnjatović PhD

Summary: Late in 1931, together with the revival of a limited constitutionality and parliamentary life in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, a three-year period ended that was temporarily suspending from the agenda the issue of debt relief for agrarian population in the country. During this brief period of time, the Privileged Agrarian Bank, established on 16 April 1929, succeeded only partially in mitigating the burden of indebtedness of rural population, by granting them long-term mortgage loans for re-financing of their short-term debts. In the spring of 1932, at the times of a profound agrarian and global economic crisis, the State prescribed that the shareholding banks and private persons shall extend to farmers the repayment of their debt, for a period of six months, i.e. until the harvesting time. That was the time interval to be used for deciding on the final solution to the problem of disproportion between the crises devastated farming revenues and the burden of financial liabilities oppressing farming population. However, this provisional status of a “farming moratorium” was to continue well up to September 1936. Banks were not ready to renounce unilaterally on their debt-claims from peasantry, while the State lacked the money necessary for compensating those dues.

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