While the government boasts of economic success, the opposition SDSM asks one simple question - if that's true, why do people have less and less money? According to the party, the cost of living is rising, wages aren't keeping up, and the billions announced for infrastructure will bring only new interest payments, not development.

The figures they cite aren't small. The cost of living rose 4.8 percent year-on-year in May, retail prices by 5.6 percent. The everyday costs of food, bills and transport are getting ever harder for the ordinary citizen, and there are no new protective measures, the opposition says.

The sharpest criticism is aimed at the 10-billion-euro plan over ten years. SDSM claims the government has already added 2.3 billion euros of new public debt in two years, and that the plan could push total debt to 12-13 billion. For that money, they point out, only 57 kilometres of motorway are planned over an entire decade - about 5.7 kilometres a year, which they call "utterly insufficient".

Of course, this is the opposition's voice, and it should be read with that caveat - parties out of power always read the numbers in a darker shade. But some of the figures check out and don't depend on political colour: if costs really are rising faster than wages, then "where's the money" isn't a party question but a budget question for every household. And so far the government has no clear answer to it.