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The Balkans is often portrayed as an area full of ancient hatreds, bloody conflicts, political instability, flagrant corruption and incompetent leadership. In reality, the Balkans is not a homogeneous region. And, despite the mayhem of the early 1990s, recent developments are far from negative: law and order are spreading, democratisation is deepening and economic development is gradually but steadily transforming urban centres and rural hinterlands. This article attempts to discard seven widespread myths about the Balkans.

The increasing number of agreements between the EU and African states reveals a trend toward a 'One Europe, One Africa' policy. The EU has gained from the Lisbon Treaty new competencies for independent external action, and coordination on Africa policy has increased in the Council, mainly due to convergence between France, Germany and the United Kingdom. However, EU policy towards Africa still lacks coherence and direction and many EU Member States still privilege bilateral links with African countries. There is still an opportunity for the EU to increase its 'actorness' in Africa. First, the EU should take advantage of the economic crisis to create new institutional links between the EU and Africa. Second, the EU should focus on its visibility and act to strengthen private and civil society ties. Despite weaknesses, there are clear indications that the coherence of the EU's Africa policy is improving.

Within the last 15 years, several factors (including the spectacular growth of their missionary activities in Third World countries) have transformed US evangelicals from staunchest isolationists to enthusiastic internationalists. Successful coalitions with other groups (like ethnic lobbies and humanitarian NGOs) and a receptive Bush administration have helped them gain unprecedented influence in US foreign policy towards the less developed world. Their influence in Washington's Africa policy (especially in relation to Sudan and foreign aid) is probably much deeper, more consistent and more able to survive a change of administration than the evangelical impact on any other area of US external relations. (Survival / SWP)

Official Development Assistance to the Balkans in the 1990-2005 period seem to reflect two different and contradictory donor 'geopolitical visions'. Some countries (like Greece and France) tended to consider the Balkans as a homogenized 'aid space'. On the contrary other countries (like Japan) or international organizations (like the European Union) tended to divide the Balkans into two 'aid spaces': the Western and the Eastern Balkans. The second 'geopolitical vision' led to differentiated aid policies. The Balkans were considered as being consisted of two groups of recipients: Western Balkans that received humanitarian and short-term reconstruction aid and Eastern Balkans that received more 'developmental' aid. In the last fifteen years the Balkans were one of the priority regions in Canada's foreign policy. Canada's military involvement in the Kosovo war was the largest military of the country since the Korean War. Also Canada has deployed an average of 1500-2000 peacekeepers at any given time in the Balkans and accepted more than 30.000 refugees from the region. But above all Canada provided hundreds of millions of $ for the reconstruction of the region. The paper focuses on Canada's bilateral aid to the Balkans, examines Canada's aid motives and attempts to identify the main differences between Canada's aid efforts in the region and those of other OECD countries. Above all the paper analyses Canada's regional geopolitical vision and tries to determine how its adoption influenced aid policy decisions.