Europe is building a new record-breaking tunnel - 64 kilometres, beneath the Alps, between Austria and Italy. The Brenner Base Tunnel, as it's known, will be the longest underground rail tunnel in the world. It will change travel across the continent - and the imbalance of trade between northern and southern Europe.

Why does it matter? Because today, the journey from Munich to Verona takes seven hours by train. Once the tunnel is finished, it will be under two and a half. That's a gap that rewrites every scheme for travel and freight transport. Trucks that currently cross the Alps at the risk of inevitable winter delays - will run beneath the mountains.

The price is huge - more than 10 billion euros. The build runs for almost two decades. This is the kind of infrastructure work Europe rarely starts. China builds tunnels like this almost every year. The EU - once every quarter-century.

For the Balkan economies, this isn't trivial news. The Brenner tunnel rewires the logistics of Mediterranean trade with northern Europe. Today the goods that move from Skopje to Munich pass through Croatia, Slovenia, Austria. With faster transport on the north-south axis, the competitiveness of the region - Macedonia included - can pick up a little.

There is another parallel. A tunnel between Spain and Morocco is also on the table - under the Strait of Gibraltar, connecting Europe and Africa. That one is for the further future. But the Brenner tunnel shows that Europe is still capable of building. The question for the Balkans is - are we?

We've been waiting 30 years for a motorway down to Bitola. Italy has 64-kilometre tunnels. We aren't speaking about the same era. We're speaking about the same civilisation. And that's the part that hurts the most.