The Government is announcing a revision of the 2026 budget that will increase the budget deficit. The justification is that the extra funds will go toward roads, infrastructure, environmental projects, IPA programmes and support for municipalities. But behind these announcements lies one very important question - can Macedonia spend more than it creates indefinitely?

If you look carefully at the table, you can spot one very interesting thing - what is essentially growing fastest is borrowing.

In the last ten years alone, the state budget has grown from around 3 billion euros in 2017 to almost 6.8 billion euros in 2026. That's growth of over 126 percent. Over the same period, Gross National Income grew from around 9.8 billion euros to 17.7 billion euros, that is around 81 percent.

These figures show that state spending is growing faster than the economy. Even more worrying is the fact that public debt over the same period rose from around 4.7 billion euros to more than 10 billion euros.

The revision comes at a time when the Government already admits that, because of the cut in fuel excise taxes, the budget will be short by more than 24 million euros. Although part of the loss has supposedly been made up through increased fuel sales to foreign vehicles, the fact remains that revenues are falling while expenditures are rising.

The key question isn't whether there will be new investments. The question is whether those investments will create new value that repays the cost of the new borrowing. History shows that Macedonia often plans capital investments, but a significant part of them remains unrealised or gets postponed for years.

That's why the public has the right to know exactly how much the deficit will grow, how much new debt will be taken on and which concrete projects will be financed with those funds. Without clear answers, every new revision remains another step toward greater dependence on borrowing and an even heavier burden on future generations.

The state can spend more only as long as someone is willing to lend to it. But no state can live indefinitely off the back of future revenues.

So when the political attacks and mutual accusations are stripped away, the figures remain. And they show that, no matter which government was in power, the state continuously spends more than it creates and covers the difference with new debt.

The biggest growth in the table is not the growth of wealth, not the growth of industry, nor the growth of productivity. The most visible is the growth of borrowing.

That's exactly why every new revision, every new deficit and every new borrowing should be analysed carefully. Because the debts are not repaid by the governments that create them, but by the citizens and the generations that come after them.