On page 187 of the Draft Spatial Plan of Macedonia to 2040 there are five names: Ilovica-Shtuka, Kazandol, Plavica, Kadiica and Luke. Five sites for metal mines. In the Strumica region, where the land has fed families for generations, those names don't sound like development. They sound like a threat.

At the public hearing in Strumica, the message from residents, activists and some of the parties was short: no mine, full stop. "A mine is not development for Strumica. The Strumica area is an agricultural region," participants said, demanding that Ilovica-Shtuka and Kazandol be struck from the plan entirely and that the state invest in farming, forests and mountain tourism in the years ahead.

Civil society groups gave the government until 29 September to revoke the concessions for Ilovica-Shtuka. The deadline expires in a few days, and so far there is no clear answer.

The Environment Ministry and the Spatial Planning Agency are trying to calm things down: this is a draft, the hearings are there to gather comments, and putting a mine in the plan doesn't mean an automatic permit to dig. Agency representative Dushica Trpchevska-Angjelkovikj explained that the deposits were included on the basis of decades of exploration and that nothing had been "made up ad hoc yesterday".

That is exactly why people are worried. A strategic document is later worked out in lower-level plans - if the mine is on the map today, the road to the excavators is shorter tomorrow. SDSM MP Jovana Trenchevska pointed out that, under the draft, the area used to extract critical raw materials would grow from about two to about ten square kilometres. She also asked something nobody has yet shown: exactly where will the pits and tailings dumps be, and how far from homes and water sources?

History doesn't help trust. The Kazandol concession was terminated back in 2018, and now the site is back on the map - the "Save Valandovo" initiative wants it deleted. As for Ilovica-Shtuka, the Higher Administrative Court sent the procedure for merging the concessions back to the relevant institutions. A dispute that has dragged on for years and keeps coming back to the table.

The hearing was stormy, with harsh words aimed at the institutions' experts too, which helps nobody. But beneath the shouting sits a simple question the government has to answer before 29 September: will the future of the Southeast be measured in tonnes of ore or in tonnes of tomatoes?