The government adopted a list of 41 public investment projects, each worth over five million euros. Hospitals in Tetovo, Stip and Kicevo. Rail Corridor VIII on the Skopje - Kicevo section. A high-speed line along Corridor 10. The Miravci wind farm. A combined gas power plant at the Bitola thermal station. The "Spilje" floating photovoltaic plant. Battery storage for electricity.

Read like that, it is the list of a country that is finally starting to build. Read carefully - it is a list of something else.

The sentence that changes the whole story

The Finance Ministry's statement contains a formulation that rarely makes it into headlines: including a project on this list "does not imply an obligation to finance it, nor a final decision on its implementation".

In other words - this is not a list of projects that will be built. It is a list of projects that passed an administrative check and are allowed to be considered further. Decisions about money will be taken later, through capital budgeting, depending on available funds, the project's maturity and the government's priorities for the fiscal year in question.

That is not a trifle. That is the difference between "we will have a hospital in Kicevo" and "the hospital in Kicevo is allowed to apply for budget".

Why the list is nevertheless worth something

Even so, there is a reform here that deserves acknowledgement. Until now capital projects in Macedonia entered the budget by a logic nobody could explain publicly - what would be built was decided without a visible criterion, and the result was started structures standing unfinished for years.

The new mechanism stems from the Regulation on Public Investment Management, adopted last year under the Budget Law. Institutions submit project ideas above five million euros. The Finance Ministry checks whether the documentation is complete, whether the data is sound, whether the project is strategically relevant and whether it is ready for further development at all. Those assessed positively go to the Public Investment Committee, formed last year, which met for the first time in April this year.

Finance Minister Violeta Dimitrieska-Kocoska expects the new system to prevent the launch of insufficiently prepared projects, which in the past often ended up stalled. That is an accurate diagnosis of a real problem - which is more than we usually get.

The test comes in the 2027 budget

The list will be the basis for new capital investments in the 2027 budget process and for the investment programmes of public enterprises and state-owned joint stock companies. Institutions are to align their planning with it.

So next year we will have something we haven't had until now - the ability to check. If the 2027 budget contains a capital project over five million euros that isn't on this list, then the entire procedure is decoration. If only projects from the list appear, then the reform works.

The list is published on the Finance Ministry's website. That is good, and it isn't a formality - a document that is public can be compared with the budget that is coming. Until then, 41 projects is a figure on paper, not on a building site.