The long weekend and the holiday have packed the borders once more. At three crossings on the Macedonian-Greek and northern borders - Bogorodica, Dojran and Tabanovce - vehicles are queuing, averaging around 40 minutes to leave the country.

According to the Auto-Moto Association, the heavier traffic is typical of the summer period and the days around holidays, when thousands of people set off on holiday towards Greece or head back from abroad. The scene is familiar - rows of cars in the sun, frayed-nerve drivers, kids in the back seats counting the minutes.

And here comes the question that returns every summer: if we know that on these very days, every year, at these very crossings the same queues form - why is there no lasting solution? More booths, better organisation, real-time digital alerts about congestion. Instead, every summer the public learns the same lesson in patience all over again.

A 40-minute wait may not sound dramatic, but multiplied by thousands of vehicles and repeated every weekend of the season, it's an enormous amount of lost time. For a country that leans on tourism and on its ties to people beyond the border, a smooth crossing isn't a luxury - it's a condition. The question is when the institutions will grasp that.