The opposition SDSM has called the announced reshuffle of Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski's Government purely cosmetic. "The reshuffle Hristijan Mickoski has announced is purely cosmetic. The same old faces stay, the same old practices continue," the party said.

According to SDSM, after this superficial reshuffling the prime minister's next step will be to call early elections - and that, they claim, because "there's no money in the budget." In other words, the opposition reads the reshuffle not as reform but as preparation to escape a situation in which governing has become too hard.

Whether that's really the case will be seen in the make-up of the new Government. But the logic the opposition offers deserves attention: if the change is substantial, why do the same people stay? And if it's just swapping the nameplates on the doors, then the real question is what exactly is being solved.

Here, of course, one has to keep in mind who's talking - an opposition with an interest in making every government look weak ahead of elections. That's why the real test isn't in SDSM's statement, but in what actually happens: whether the reshuffle brings new names and new results, or just a new photograph with the same faces. Until then, both the government's boasts and the opposition's criticism are just words waiting on deeds.