Abstract
"Central Europe" and "Balkans" are figurative concepts that entail a large amount of metaphors. Unlike "Central Europe", the "Balkans" are associated with a large number of negative metaphors.
An important reason for this are the ethnic conflicts at the beginning and end of the 20th century. The term "Central Europe", which has been definitely established only since the 1980s, is not similarly burdened, although in that area was carried out the forced national homogenization after the Second World War as well.
The term was further consolidated thanks to the existence of the Visegrad Group formed in 1992, through which the political unity of Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia was strengthened. The Visegrad Group has been supporting the accesssion of the Western Balkan countries into the EU since 2004, and since then the Western Balkans' dependent relationship with "Central Europe" has been developing.