Once upon a time a certain corner of Europe was known as Yugoslavia. Then it became former Yugoslavia or, for pointy-heads, the Yugoslav successor states. Now, with Slovenia in the European Union, Brussels has packaged what’s left of the old Yugoslavia with Albania and relabelled it “the western Balkans” – but the problems remain as intractably Yugoslav as ever.

Take Bosnia-Herzegovina, where EU foreign ministers today named Valentin Inzko, a high-ranking Austrian diplomat, as the bloc’s new Special Representative. Inzko will wear two hats – he was named the world’s High Representative for Bosnia last week. But it will be something of a miracle if he makes any progress towards bringing the Bosnian state off the international life support machine on which it has depended since the end of the 1992-95 civil war.

Insofar as the EU has any idea what to do, it seems to believe that the mutual suspicions that poison relations between Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Serbs (and, to some extent, both communities’ relations with Bosnian Croats) will gradually disappear under the lure of eventual EU membership for the country. But as an excellent new report by the International Crisis Group points out, Bosnia is quite unlike the other former communist states to which the EU has – often successfully – applied this soothing strategy.

The essential problem is that the 1995 Dayton peace agreement did enough to end the war and suppress the temptation to start another one, but not enough to convince the Bosnian Muslims, Serbs and Croats that their only possible future lay in co-operating inside a single state. The Muslims were permitted to believe that one day they could assert themselves as Bosnia’s largest and strongest nationality, running a more centralised state. The Serbs were allowed to think that their sub-entity, Republika Srpska, might somehow be able to wriggle free of the rest of Bosnia and win independence.

Consequently, as Miroslav Lajcak of Slovakia, Inzko’s predecessor as High Representative, once told me, politicians representing Bosnia’s three nationalities do not regard putting Bosnia on a firm path to EU membership as a priority. Rather, all the squabbles that preoccupied them in the 1980s and early 1990s are being played out yet again.

“Hardliners on all sides recognise that advancing toward Europe means giving up their ideal solutions: the Serbs know that as Bosnia draws closer to Brussels, it will be harder for them to break away; the Bosniaks fear that reducing RS [Republika Srpska] autonomy will be impossible,” the ICG report says.

The tone of the nationalist rhetoric in Bosnia these days reveals a lot about the kind of dysfunctional place it has become. Although shrill, it stops short of direct incitement to mass violence – in contrast to, say, the language used in 1991 and early 1992. At the same time, it is loud enough to show that Bosnia’s politicians, living under international protection for almost 14 years, have got used to the idea that they can shout all they like and it won’t have any practical consequences for them.

They are, in that sense, like irresponsible adolescents – with the EU like a bumbling aunt, unsure whether to punish, reward, lecture, or just run upstairs with her hands over her ears.

In his recent inaugural address in Washington, President Barack Obama said “the time has come to set aside childish things”. Evidently the leaders of the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia weren’t listening.

They have just done an unbelievably childish thing and named their section of a major north-south trans-European highway – known in Eurospeak as “Corridor 10″ – after Alexander the Great. In 2007, they renamed Skopje airport after him.

Now, as we know, Alexander certainly had a taste for travel. He extended his empire as far as India. But these persistent efforts to attach his name to modern European transport systems are, I’d say, beginning to stretch the point.

The Macedonians in Skopje think their state has a rightful claim on Alexander’s memory because of his connections to their territory in ancient times. But the authorities in Athens regard Alexander as an exclusively Greek warrior-hero.

The result: Greece has made clear it won’t pay one euro towards the cost of the Macedonian part of Corridor 10. And relations between Athens and Skopje are in yet another mess.

In Brussels, European Union officials are beside themselves with frustration as they watch this dispute jeopardise their carefully laid plans for the EU’s slow but steady enlargement into the Balkans. The argument over what former Yugoslav Macedonia should call itself has dragged on for almost 20 years, and a solution seems no closer now than when it first broke out.

Of course, the dispute arouses great passions on both sides - as shown in the posts to this story on BalkanInsight.com. But the way it’s being handled would be enough to make the great Alexander turn in his grave.

Greece argues that Skopje’s claim to the name Macedonia is an assault on Greece’s ancient Hellenic heritage, its identity and even its territory, since there is a northern Greek province also called Macedonia. For the former Yugoslav republic, however, it is vital to have a name that strengthens the identity of its people. Skopje perceives subtle threats not only from Greece but from Bulgaria, which questions whether there really is such a thing as a Macedonian nation and language, and Serbia, which denies the autonomy of the Macedonian church.

Last year, a widespread view in Brussels was that Greece had overplayed its hand when it blocked ex-Yugoslav Macedonia’s progress towards EU and Nato membership because of the name dispute. Now, however, it’s Skopje that’s in the EU’s black book, because of its dumb decision on renaming its bit of Corridor 10.

In an excellent new report, the International Crisis Group think-tank recommends that Skopje should state its readiness to accept a UN mediator’s proposal and use the name “Republic of Northern Macedonia” for international purposes. In return, Greece should drop its veto threats at Nato and the EU.

Common sense, really. But this is a commodity in short supply in some parts of the Balkans.

Turkey should almost be pleased. On Friday the European Union agreed to open two new “chapters”, or policy areas, in Turkey’s EU accession negotiations – on the free movement of capital and on information society and the media. The Czech Republic, which takes over the EU’s rotating presidency from France on January 1, hopes to open two more chapters during its six-month spell in charge.

So out of the 35 chapters that need to be completed before a country can join the EU, Turkey now has 10 open and could have 12 open by June 30. Whoopee! At this rate, all 35 will be open by some time in 2015. Except, of course, that certain western European governments have no intention of letting Turkey into the EU at all. Moreover, eight of Turkey’s negotiating chapters were frozen two years ago because the EU disapproves of Turkey’s refusal to open its ports and airports to trade with Cyprus. All in all, far from moving steadily forwards, Turkey’s accession talks are going nowhere fast.

Still, at least Turkey is under fewer and fewer illusions about where things really stand. With Croatia, there is less certainty. Quarrels with Slovenia, its former fellow-Yugoslav republic, meant that the EU on Friday concluded only three chapters with Croatia and opened one more. Slovenia blocked further progress.

This was a bitter blow for Croatia, which had wanted to conclude five chapters, open 10, and race ahead to completing its EU entry talks by next December, with a view to becoming a full member-state in 2011. Instead, Croatia now has concluded only 7 of the 35 chapters, with another 15 open and 13 more still to be launched. Finishing these talks inside the next 12 months is starting to look like a very tall task.

Then there is Serbia. A report by the United Nations war crimes prosecutor this month made it clear that, even if Serbian co-operation with the war crimes tribunal in The Hague had improved, it ought to be even better. The arrest of Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb general accused of genocide, would do the trick. But as long as he remains at large, the Dutch government won’t lift its block on closer Serbian association with the EU.

Macedonia is stuck, too – over that wearisome dispute with Greece about what its name should be. As for Bosnia-Herzegovina, it will be something of an achievement if it hangs together as a state, never mind about joining the EU. And when Montenegro officially presented its membership application on Monday, there were mutterings on the EU side that this was much too premature.

Some people put these problems down to “enlargement fatigue” in the EU’s older member-states. I don’t know if they’re right. But it certainly looks as if, as far as concerns enlargement, everyone can settle down to a good long sleep in 2009.