The Makedonium for 500 euros - and resignations after the fact

The Makedonium in Kruševo, the monument to the Ilinden Uprising and a protected cultural heritage site, was handed over to film a rap video for around 500 euros. According to the Historical Museum, there was a decision by the management board and a fee was charged. The Cultural Heritage Protection Office says it never received any request. Director Miha Odžaklieski submitted an irrevocable resignation, the board followed, and Prime Minister Mickoski apologised to the public.

The most telling sentence came from the director himself: the procedure was "part of an already established and previously applied practice". If that is true, the problem is not one music video - it is a routine nobody ever questioned. The same week, the director of the National Gallery also fell, after an emergency inspection. The two cases are different, but they raise the same question: by what criteria did these people get their jobs in the first place?

Brussels hands out roadmaps, and Macedonia is not in the draft

The European Commission is preparing a new enlargement plan, and according to information about the draft, special roadmaps for fast-tracked membership are being considered for Montenegro, Albania, Ukraine and Moldova. Macedonia, which opened accession talks together with Albania in July 2022, is not among them. Mickoski says he has no such information and that it would make no sense - but he also looks for an explanation in the extremist wave in Germany and France.

Instead of a roadmap, what is on the table is gradual integration into the single market - provided candidates follow Brussels' foreign policy and keep key technologies away from its rivals. A useful offer, but an economic back door is no answer to blocked negotiations. The EU's position has not moved: constitutional amendments first.

Cheap fuel is draining the treasury

Lower excise duties and VAT on fuel will cost the budget 6 to 7 billion denars by the end of the year, so Mickoski is not ruling out a second budget revision this year, after the one in July. The finance minister says the deficit will stay at the projected 4.1 percent of GDP. If revenues fall and the deficit stays put, something has to be cut - and the July revision handed out extra money precisely for capital investment, local development, agriculture and social protection. Which of those will feel the scissors first, nobody is saying yet.

Puls: 244 defence witnesses and a detention running out

The prosecution has finished presenting its evidence in the trial over the fire at the Puls nightclub, and the defence has called 244 witnesses, proposed by the lawyers of 34 accused individuals and three legal entities. On Saturday the one-year legal limit on the club owner's detention expires, and the court cannot rule on the offered guarantee of almost 200,000 euros because the prosecution's opinion still hasn't arrived. Everyone knew the deadline. So why is the answer late precisely a few days before it?

150 electric buses, fewer seats and documents nobody hands over

The state will pay 60 million euros for 150 new electric buses, and research by the CGK watchdog shows the tender was repeated three times over 15 months, two former competitors ended up bidding together, and two cheaper offers were rejected. The new buses will carry 20 fewer passengers than the ones Skopje bought last time. The ministry says everything was transparent, but it never handed over the requested documents.

In Skopje, meanwhile, the first 100 buses go to the capital, and Mayor Gjorgjievski admits that at some locations the old grid cannot handle the load and new substations will be needed. The buses are ordered; the grid is only now being rebuilt.

Skopje, Arachinovo, Petrovec: clean-ups, excavators and party press releases

Around 30,000 people took part in a major clean-up campaign at more than 50 locations across Skopje, and the city announced clean-ups like this twice a month. The more important number is a different one: fines of over 80,000 euros imposed on companies dumping waste.

In Arachinovo, just days after the foundation stone was laid, an excavator burned at the construction site of the new stadium. The mayor calls it an attack; the police are still looking for the cause. In Petrovec, meanwhile, the municipality's annual record - boreholes, asphalt, 2,500 denars each for pensioners on low pensions - was announced by VMRO-DPMNE, not by the municipality. Public money, party credit.

The region and the world: campaigns, threats and bans

In Serbia, Vučić launched his campaign for prime minister and, in front of more than 10,000 people in Jagodina, named Kurti, Đukanović and Plenković as the forces behind the opposition - without evidence. Moscow, through Maria Zakharova, told Poland that European arms factories producing for Ukraine are potential targets, even though the Patriot missile factory doesn't exist yet.

Italy banned the burqa and niqab in schools and from 2027 is introducing a 30 percent quota for children with weak Italian. And on a flydubai flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv, according to current information, a pilot attacked his colleague in the cockpit with a knife - the plane with 174 people on board made an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia after passengers overpowered the attacker.

The lighter side of the day

The new academic year began for around 53,500 students, 13,800 of them freshmen. In sport, the national football team has now gone 607 minutes without a goal, and head coach Sedloski is asking for patience. Pelister, meanwhile, opened its European League campaign with a heavy 24:31 home defeat in Bitola - in front of a crowd that at times applauded the visitors.

If the heavier part of the day has a common thread, it is the order of things: first the damage, then the apology, then the resignation, and the documents, opinions and answers - last, if at all. The monument, the tender and the trial follow the same pattern. The question is not who resigns next time, but whether anyone will ask before rather than after.