Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has once again pushed back at the European Union with a message we've heard in various forms over the past 20 years, but with growing bitterness. „You always found an excuse to keep us at the door", he told the EU, in the context of Turkey's stalled membership which now counts over 35 years of failed negotiations.

The arguments repeat themselves - double standards, political capping of ambitions, „Turkey isn't the old Turkey", and one new claim that deserves attention - „the EU cannot be a global factor without Turkey". Erdogan is demanding the EU drop the rhetoric and moves that „undermine Ankara's constructive position" toward the negotiations.

For the Balkans, this question is directly linked. If Turkey, with over 85 million people, NATO's second-largest army, and an economy moving between 17 and 18 billion euros, can't get membership after 35 years - what's the realistic horizon for Macedonia, which has been waiting for over 20 years with 2 million people and far less strategic weight? We're not asking the question to discourage - we're asking it to be honest.

The second thing - the geopolitical moment. Erdogan has economic problems at home - inflation, currency instability, strikes. Anti-EU rhetoric is a party resource used when domestic support needs consolidating. But that doesn't mean he's wrong. The EU genuinely never wanted Turkey inside - and the fact that it never said so out loud is exactly what makes it look hypocritical.

The question that doesn't get asked out loud - what do Balkan candidates gain when Turkey publicly lectures them on Brussels' sincerity? Probably nothing. But it at least offers them a new perspective - the Union isn't an institution that asks to be helped, it's an institution that chooses when to help. And that final choice isn't always honest. Erdogan said it out loud. Balkan politicians rarely dare - because they have less leverage.