The tensions between Skopje and Sofia are gaining a new front. The Bulgarian foundation "Macedonia" has announced that on Sunday it will block the three border crossings between Bulgaria and our country, with a message aimed at Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski.

A border blockade isn't an ordinary protest - it's an act that directly hits ordinary people on both sides. Drivers, passengers, hauliers and families travelling over the weekend will be the ones to pay the price of a political gesture, while those who organise it collect points and headlines. That's how it always is when symbolism is carried out on the back of the citizen.

The news comes in the same week that Bulgarian diplomatic vehicles were set on fire in Skopje - a sequence of events that's hard to call coincidental. Relations between the two states are strained as it is, and every move like this, whichever side it comes from, adds fuel to a fire that has long been smouldering. Who really gains from all this? Certainly not the person who will be waiting in line at a blocked border on Sunday.