Iliana Jotova repeated the formula Skopje has been hearing for years. In Blagoevgrad, marking the 114th anniversary of what Bulgaria calls the liberation of Gorna Džumaja, the Bulgarian president said Sofia is "always open to talks", but "without ultimatums and without departures from European policy". And then she made her point, addressed directly to Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski: he "must read European policy very carefully" on enlargement and forget that this is a bilateral issue.

Here the paradox begins. On Friday Macedonia's Foreign Ministry sent a request for a bilateral meeting between ministers Timčo Mucunski and Velislava Petrova-Chamova, to be held on the sidelines of the ministerial meeting on Corridor 8. So far Sofia's answer isn't arriving through diplomatic channels, but through microphones: we're ready to talk, as long as Skopje first accepts that the talk isn't bilateral. A bilateral meeting about an issue that must not be called bilateral - that is the European policy Skopje is supposed to "read very carefully".

Jotova herself said she wants her minister to show her exactly what the note says and how it is worded. So she has yet to read the note. The conditions for the talks, however, she already knows.

She went a step further. She said she didn't know the details of the one-on-one conversation between Mickoski and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, but hoped that this time von der Leyen had been "exceptionally firm". She also said that, before anything else, the case of Iva Mihajlova must be resolved, over which Bulgaria, according to her, has turned to "the highest European and world institutions". And she added that a country that has set out on the European path must not "speak in the tone of ultimatums".

When Sofia sets conditions before a meeting, that is "European policy". When Skopje asks for a meeting, that's the risk of an ultimatum. How many times does this scene have to play out before people stop calling it dialogue?

Mickoski, for his part, says he is not satisfied with von der Leyen's message on the constitutional amendments, though he described the meeting as friendly and useful. If Bulgaria rejects the meeting, he said, the government's arguments will be confirmed once again - but in his view it would not be wise for Sofia to turn the offer down. Political analyst Siniša Pekevski is more sceptical: "Realistically it's good that there will be talks, but I don't expect progress - their demands are fixed and they won't back down from them."

The next stop is the report on Macedonia's progress, which according to Jotova the European Commission will consider in about two weeks. Until then - a note whose text Jotova still wants to see, conditions that are already written, and "moderate optimism" from the side doing the writing.