President Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova delivered a message that, in a single sentence, sums up the entire Macedonian gap with Brussels and Sofia: stop wasting time on historical questions and Europeanize through reforms. Easy to say, hard to do - because history is exactly where the negotiations have stalled for years.

Her thesis is that identity and historical disputes are excluded from the EU's identity and constitutional acts, and therefore have no place in membership negotiations. Instead, she calls for "constitutional patriotism" and points out that the Constitution has already been amended 36 times - most often under external pressure, which she sees as a sign of an improper relationship with constitutional law.

Behind the diplomatic vocabulary stands a direct message to Sofia: the essence of a good-neighborly treaty should be cooperation and support on the road to the EU, not blockades, vetoes, and historical conditionality. In other words - let us Europeanize, instead of constantly reopening the same past.

And here's the uncomfortable reality that a message by itself changes nothing. Brussels insists that constitutional amendments are a condition for opening negotiations; the president demands membership based on the Copenhagen criteria, without identity conditions. The two positions collide, and no statement - however accurate - closes that hole.

The question for the ordinary citizen is simpler than all of this: how many more years will we spin in the "history versus future" loop, while younger generations leave and don't wait for the dispute to be settled? Siljanovska is asking that time not be wasted - but the clock has long been ticking, and not in our favor.