There are statements worth more than the words themselves - not because of what they say, but because of who says them. At today's press conference, Foreign Minister Timčo Mucunski said that the protocols with Bulgaria are not part of the negotiating framework with the EU. „These are, in fact, minutes from the sessions of the two intergovernmental commissions and nothing more,” he explained, as a minister and, as he himself stressed, as a lawyer.

The sentence sounds technical, almost dull. But it is anything but. Because with it Mucunski - a man from the ranks of VMRO-DPMNE - took up exactly the position for which his party spent years attacking its opponents. The very thing the minister now claims has been repeated for three or four years by the former head of diplomacy Bujar Osmani and SDSM leader Venko Filipče. And for it they were called „Bulgarian spies” and „pawns”.

Osmani did not miss the chance to underline the reversal. „For four years I have said the protocols are not part of the negotiating framework. For four years I have taken criticism, attacks and insults. For four years I have drawn on the board, explained, repeated. One step taken,” he wrote on Facebook, sharing the current minister's statement. The tone is triumphant, and it is hard to blame him.

So, what changed? Not the facts - they have been the same from the very start. What changed is who sits in the office. When an opposition minister claimed this, it was treason. When a governing minister claims it, it is legal truth. The same sentence, two opposite reactions - the only difference is the party membership card of the mouth it comes out of.

Mucunski further stressed that he fully agrees with President Siljanovska-Davkova's stance that the negotiating framework contains no provision, explicit or implicit, tied to the moment the constitutional amendments take effect. A legitimate legal position. But the question that remains is not legal - it is political and moral: who will answer for the years lost in mutual accusations over something everyone now agrees on? How many times must the same truth be repeated from the wrong mouth before it becomes acceptable?