It is true that wars damage a lot economies, but most of Europe was at war between 1940 and 1945. Only a few countries like Switzerland, Sweden or Ireland escaped WWII. Ironically Ireland was still the poorest Western or Northern European country in the aftermath of WWII. Its dramatic economic growth started much later thanks to US investments.
wars damage economies, but can also depending on circumstances influence differently moral of different nations....
Switzerland and Scandinavian countries has continuity of development not really interrupted by second world war destructions....
most other west European countries also had lot of peaceful periods in last few honderd years...
and many of them were collonial powers, which means they were for long periods of history in posession of natural resources that didnot belong to them, and in possession of cheap labour of own colonies....
in Balkan, ever since 15th century, most countries were slaves of Otoman empire till 19th century (some as Albania and Macedonia even until short before first world war, and Bosnia until it was taken over by Austro-hungarian empire in the end of 19th century which was essentially just changing crude slave owner for more sophisticated one... )..
having no state of your own means being someone's colony.... and that is not really good environment to develop economy or working habits....
In Serbia, between 15th and 19th century, Serbs did live only in villages...while towns were populated by Turks, and islamized Serbs who were by ordinary people denounced as "Turks" worse than Turks (e.g. I have read that ancestors of Bosnian muslims war leader Alija Izetbegovic were such islamized family that was ruling in Belgrade area, and were after liberation forced to leave Serbia) ...
thing is that in Ottoman empire in Balkan taxes for non-islamic population were extremely high, while taxes for islamic people were not existing..... so there was no chance to have own economy... working hard didnot pay off... more hard you work more you give to Turks (mostly to "Turks" who needed to live in comfort without working), and same is left to you...
as soon as there was (happened after WW2) period of few decades of peace and having own country, ex-yugoslavia was fast among more developed countries in Europe...
regarding non-Balkan countries with some haplogroup E....
how could African countries develop when they were colonies till quite recently... it meant that they have their own Turks and "Turks".... since they did not liberate themselves, once their Turks were gone after world war 2, they still had "Turks" in power and both "Turks"and Turks as owners of resources... in economical sense, Africa is still a colony... besides, climate there is terrible.... and big part of wealth of west europe is due to centuries of stealing resources from colonies like the ones in Africa... so, if moral values are changing, I would expect that west europe helps its ex-colonies to compensate for centuries of hampering their development and stealing their resources...... though now we have a case that ex-colony helps ex-owner in case of Brasil and Portugal....
Apart from former Yugoslavia (which does not include Macedonia or Albania, btw), wars don't explain why the Balkans are so much poorer than the rest of Europe.
former Yugoslavia does include Macedonia
and there was also war in Macedonia - between Macedonians and Albanians who live there... perhaps it was not so much covered in media because both sides were considered allies of west, so it was not easy to assign black and white roles to sides.... same as armed conflicts between muslims and Croats in Bosnia were hardly covered by west media....
Switzerland doesn't seem to have suffer too much from its self-imposed isolationist policy. They still don't want to join the EU, or NATO, or pretty much any other international organisation.
I wouldnot call that isolationism... they just refuse to participate in organizations that in their opinion will not bring them benefit..... they do not cut economy flows...
isolationism of communist albania meant it is not ready to coperate with either west or east countries due to ideological differences....
economic isolation of Serbia was enforced by UN and meant no flow of economy over the borders...
neither is comparable to a country choosing not to join EU or NATO....
it is like you compare imprisoned person placed in solitary with a person who doesnot want to be a member of local library or video club...
So why is it that the Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese or Thai are so hard working ? Northern China notwithstanding, their climate is hotter than pretty much anywhere in Europe. Most of Japan is subtropical (a bit like Florida). Besides Americans work hard in hot states like California, Arizona, Texas or Florida too. Australians are much more productive than most Mediterraneans, even though their climate is even hotter.
Japanese are exceptional in many cases...
the others are not much more efficent than Mediterranian or Balkan people...