Deputy Prime Minister and Transport Minister Aleksandar Nikoloski announced that one lane of the Bitola - Prilep highway will be opened next year, with the whole project finished by 2029. The three Corridor 8 sections - Tetovo-Gostivar, Gostivar-Bukojchani and Prilep-Bitola - are still on schedule.

"Only one lane will be fully operational, meaning we'll open traffic on the new section in one direction, with the entire section finished within the deadline," Nikoloski said. That's a more credible phrasing than "the highway is done" - it shows the government has learned to lower expectations before it breaks the promise.

Behind the technical progress sits a concrete dispute. About ten owners of holiday cottages in the village of Oreoak are blocking access to the quarries needed for construction material. Nikoloski claims this blockade could cost the state up to 100 million euros and asked why Levica is defending the owners. That's the rhetoric of a minister who doesn't want to absorb delays on a project he answers for in public.

For the Ohrid - Kichevo highway, Nikoloski says the deadline is next May - but he expects it to be finished earlier. Of the total 57 kilometres, 37 are already in use, and more sections are expected to open through the summer. An impressive figure, if you remember that this same highway has been "under construction" for 12 years.

The deputy PM himself was honest about how those 12 years went. "The highway has been under construction for 12 years, but realistically only 2 years of actual work," he said. That's an admission you rarely hear from Macedonian politicians - that for most of the time something is being "built", they are not actually building anything. The open question is whether the next two years will be productive, or whether the political cycle will once again park the machinery exactly where it stands.