European Commission on its official website Facebook, marked it International Youth Day by publishing a map of The old continent which shows certain specificities of the countries. Namely, the map is intended for children and young people to learn something more about European countries in a colorful and interesting way.

Despite the good intentions of the European Commission to provide the best kind of educational content for teachers and students as part of its "Learning corner", the drawn map caused numerous controversies. Namely, numerous European landmarks are shown on the mentioned map, but if you pay attention to The Balkans, can be seen as The European Union neglected this corner of the Europe.

The map shows the Old Continent with certain specificities of the countries, and where they should be Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania и Northern Macedonia, there is almost nothing.

As part of the sights of the area Croatia, are shown the Dalmatian dog, the Zagreb Cathedral, Diocletian's Palace in Split and a cup of coffee, which symbolizes one of the habits of the Croatian people, but the illustrators of the maps forgot about the rest of the Balkans, so this is the case with all the symbols that adorn the countries of Western Balkans only a bear is left.

Numerous Facebook users noticed this failure of the European Union and expressed their displeasure in the comments.

„On "The Wild Western Balkans" nothing can be seen or found, except some grass, bears, dogs and a bridge in the middle of the wilderness", reads the most popular comment on the post.

"In most countries from the former Yugoslavia only bears live? Thank you", is one of the comments for nothing.

"So, only dogs and bears live in the countries of the Western Balkans. Interesting, real European values", is also one of the comments under the map.

While some commenters told the illustrators to "go back to elementary school," others channeled their displeasure into comments that dealt with more serious topics.

"This is such a good resource for teaching… teaching about racism," one comment read.
“How dare you show countries outside of EU like empty deserts without any cultural heritage? It would be more appropriate to leave that space empty," one Facebook user wrote.

Furthermore, he referred to the design, that is, the illustrations of the rest of the map.