The Kičevo-Ohrid motorway is due to be completed by the end of 2026. Nikoloski says that in 1 year and 9 months in office, the current government has done "much more than the previous one did in 7 years." When this administration took over in July 2024, not a single metre of asphalt had been laid on the entire route. By the summer of 2024, 34 kilometres had been opened to traffic.

On the most challenging section, engineers are installing 14 galleries in series - something "for the first time in the entire region", claims Nikoloski. Domestic companies are doing the work, and total investment in roads and railways is presented as €5 billion.

But Corridor 8 is not just Kičevo-Ohrid. Connection with Bulgaria follows after the western section is completed, and Nikoloski also announces "two route options towards Albania" - a decision that requires a UNESCO visit that has already been delayed by one month. The country's transport network could genuinely be transformed by the end of the decade, if the deadlines hold.

12 years of construction, governments come and go, each with their own figures and press conferences. Whether anyone will be driving through Kičevo-Ohrid by end of 2026 - that's the question citizens have been waiting to answer for a long time, not slides.