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Kosova Report has linked an article from The Economist on Europes ultimate periphery that still is: the Balkans.

Maybe I got it wrong, yet to start with the famous quotation of Otto von Bismarck that the Balkans "are not worth the healthy bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier" seems to be bad politics to me. Although the author tries his best to convince the superpowers, especially the "half-exhausted, introverted EU," not to turn their back on the Balkans but to offer them "advice, money and the ultimate prize of admission to the EU club" instead, the whole article is riddled with negative images of the Balkans suspiciously close to the old ones from around 1900.

Apart from the "good intentions" of the article, if the Balkans are that "squalid" as they have been about 200 years ago, it will stay so in the future. That the Balkans are not worth the body of a single soldier stays true, and it is again the fear for the own safety alone which causes limited western action. So, in the end it is just one of those inexplicable inequities that Europe has to live and deal with such "awkward neighbours".