Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski has announced the Demographic Resilience Strategy 2026-2046 - an ambitious plan that the government is presenting as „a national framework for the future of the state". At a regional ministerial conference in Skopje with 200 foreign experts, Mickoski sent his message to the young: „Don't contribute to other people's economies - the future of your homeland depends on you."

It sounds good. But when a prime minister talks about demographic resilience, it's reasonable to ask: what is the starting point? Macedonia is losing young people at an annual pace - 30,000 to 50,000 emigrate every year, according to official estimates. Why? Not because Macedonia is a bad place - but because the conditions for life, salaries, healthcare and education are below the level that would keep them.

The strategy includes plans for 19 new kindergartens, financing for childcare and elderly care. Those are good steps. But 19 kindergartens don't solve the core problem. A young person who finishes university and earns 25,000 denars net, while an apartment in Skopje costs 60,000 euros, will not stay because of 19 new kindergartens. They will go to Germany, where the same training pays three times more.

Minister Fatmir Limani says: „We are creating conditions in which young people will see their future at home - with stable jobs, quality public services and a secure perspective." Those are exactly the words that have been repeated for 30 years. The question is: what is new? Specifically, by how much will salaries rise? How big will the subsidy be for a first apartment? Where are the details?

UNFPA expert Pio Smith warned that demographic changes are „a mega-trend that will define the century" and require urgent, coordinated responses to prevent systemic collapse in education and elderly care. That is a well-known fact. But for Macedonia it says: we are not the exception, and without serious measures, we will be the first to enter the spiral.

We'll be watching the 2026-2046 strategy - perhaps with a little more scepticism than the prime minister would like. Twenty years is a long time. Many demographic-revival plans across the Balkans have, in the past, remained just paper documents. Macedonia's future does not depend on kindergartens - it depends on whether the state can build an economy capable of retaining its young people. That is not in this strategy - so far.