Chaillot Paper On Balkans Future: A Case Of Ill-Informed Leading The Ill-Informed

EUISS has published on 3rd September 2018 Chaillot Paper No. 147 titled "Balkan futures- Three Scenarios for 2025". As it would be recalled the EU Commission adopted in February 2018 a strategy under the title of "A credible enlargement perspective for an enhanced EU engagement with the Western Balkans". We understand from its title that said Chaillot Paper No.147 (The Paper) was prepared to shed light on the possible security situation in the Balkans by 2025 which was defined as a target date for strengthening the EU. Accordingly, at the very beginning of the Paper, in Executive Summary section, it starts with the sentence "What will the Western Balkans look like in 2025?" In the Executive Summary section the authors state that "This Chaillot Paper presents three contrasting scenarios for the horizon of 2025 – best-case, medium-case, and worst-case. Each scenario takes account of the impact of underlying megatrends (trends that are unlikely to change by 2025) on the future trajectory of the region: the scenarios do not just spell out what 2025 could look like, they also explain how decisions with far-reaching consequences taken at critical junctures (called game-changers) will shape this future between today and then. First one is "The hour of Europe" which is shortly described as "a positive and optimistic vision of the future evolution of the Western Balkans." The third scenario is "The ghosts of the past". In the third doomy scenario, the authors say that "The redrawing of borders in the Balkans has not taken place without bloodshed". The paper unfortunately considers Turkey as one of the “disruptive external actors.” We have asserted for long that the name "Western Balkans" is a misnomer. We have also stressed that the EU's proposed strategy for the "Western Balkans" is a misdesign on the basis of this misnomer. Turkey is firstly a centuries old Balkan country, secondly an associate member of the EU since 1964 and lastly a NATO member since 1952. In this respect, considering Turkey as one of the “Disruptive external actors” of the Balkans is an extremely unfair characterization that the Turkish public opinion would unwaveringly reject even before the officials of Turkey.