Balkans
The term is criticized for having a geopolitical rather a geographical meaning and definition, as a multiethnic and political area in the Southeastern part of Europe. The geographical term of a peninsula defines that the water border must be longer than land, with the land side being the shortest in the triangle, but that's not the case with the Balkan Peninsula. Both Eastern and Western water cathetus from Odessa to Cape Matapan (ca. 1230-1350 km) and from Trieste to Cape Matapan (ca. 1270-1285 km) are shorter than land cathetus from Trieste to Odessa (ca. 1330-1365 km). The land has a too wide line connected to the continent to be technically proclaimed as a peninsula - Szczecin (920 km) and Rostock (950 km) at the Baltic Sea are closer to Trieste than Odessa yet it is not considered as another European peninsula. Since the late 19th and early 20th-century literature is not known where is exactly the Northern border between the peninsula and the continent, with an issue, whether the rivers are suitable for its definition. In the studies the Balkans natural borders, especially Northern border, are often avoided to be addressed, considered as a "fastidious problem" by André Blanc in "Geography of the Balkans" (1965), while John Lampe and Marvin Jackman in "Balkan Economic History" (1971) noted that "modern geographers seem agreed in rejecting the old idea of a Balkan Peninsula". Another issue is the name because the Balkan Mountains which are mostly located in Northern Bulgaria are not dominating the region by length and area like the Dinaric Alps. An eventual Balkan peninsula can be considered a territory South of the Balkan Mountains, with a possible name "Greek-Albanian Peninsula", but Greece is rarely defined as a Balkan nation both geographically and in international relations. The term influenced the meaning of Southeast Europe which again is not properly defined by geographical factors yet historical borders of the Balkans.
2016 Western Balkans Summit, Paris
2016 Western Balkans Summit in Paris, France was third annual summit within the Berlin Process initiative for European integration of Western Balkans states. Previous summits took place in Berlin in 2014 and in Vienna in 2015. Heads of government, foreign ministers and the ministers of economy of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, as well as EU member states from the region Croatia, Slovenia and EU member states Austria, France, Germany, Italy as well as representatives of the European Union and the International Financial Institutions took part in Paris summit. Summit took place on 4 July 2016. Participants welcomed the intention of Italy to host the next summit in 2017.