The extradition request for Nikola Gruevski has expired. There is no active international warrant from Interpol. The former prime minister, convicted and sentenced to prison, who fled to Budapest in 2018, can rest easy in Hungary for now. Literally - nobody is looking for him.

The investigation into who helped him escape from Macedonia is closed. The mystery remains: how did a convicted politician with a confiscated passport manage to leave the country and reach Budapest? Eight years later, the answer is the same - nobody knows, or nobody wants to say.

Additional irony: Gruevski's asylum in Hungary was secured by Viktor Orban, who is now out of power. New Prime Minister Peter Magyar, despite praising Orban for the EU Commission, has yet to comment on the fate of the Macedonian fugitive. Does Orban's fall change Gruevski's position?

Macedonia long ago stopped insisting. No warrant, no extradition, no political will. Gruevski is in Budapest, and the system that was supposed to bring him back quietly closed the file. Justice, Macedonian style: if you wait long enough, the case expires on its own.