President Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova is taking part in the two-day NATO Summit in Ankara, where she leads the Macedonian delegation at the meeting of the North Atlantic Council in the presidential complex "Bestepe". Macedonia sits at the table with the world's biggest military powers - but what it concretely brings home from those tables is a question that rarely gets a clear answer.

The official picture is familiar: the Macedonian president among the leaders of the alliance, the flag in its place, photos for the home public. NATO membership is one of the few foreign-policy gains around which there is broad consensus in the country, and attendance at a summit like this is confirmation that Macedonia is part of the Western security bloc.

But behind the ceremonial part, it is worth asking what such membership means in practice for the ordinary citizen. The security guarantees are real - for a small country in the Balkans with a turbulent history, sitting under the same umbrella as the strongest is no small thing. The question is whether that protection comes with obligations we pay for, and whether in return we get a voice that is truly heard, or just a chair at the end of the table.

Summits come and go, the photos get published, and the real value of a membership is measured in the moments when it is genuinely needed. Until then, Macedonia will keep sitting at these tables - which is in itself an achievement generations longed for. Let us just not forget that a seat at the table is not an end in itself, but a tool for something bigger.