The ship Galeb - originally named RAMB III, having survived more than one era over the decades - now lies in Rijeka as the symbol of a very specific Balkan phenomenon: nothing gets finished on time, especially when money and museums are involved.

The ship's history reads like a novel. An Italian banana freighter from the 1930s, built to ferry fruit from African colonies. Torpedoed by Allied forces in Benghazi in 1941. Seized by Germany, renamed "Kiebitz," sunk in Rijeka's port on November 5, 1944. Raised from the seabed in 1947. Restored in the 1950s to become the floating residence of Josip Broz Tito, who on this ship carried out his Non-Aligned diplomatic missions - toward Africa and Asia, 1953-1961.

Today? The City of Rijeka bought it back in 2009 for about 800,000 kuna. The restoration has run to 22 million euros - 4 million from EU funds, 11 million from the Rijeka budget, the rest from other sources. And the museum still isn't open. Historian Ervin Dubrović is blunt: "There's no excuse for why the ship hasn't been finished."

This is a story the Balkans knows too well. A project starts with enthusiasm, budgets get filled, get spent - but when it's time to sweep the back yard and open the doors, something always comes up. Responsibility for anything is never clear. In the end, every committee is responsible "for organisation," but nobody answers for the result. Even when it's about a ship that carried bananas and Tito.

For Macedonia and the region, this is an unambiguous mirror. How many of our projects - cultural centers, museums, restorations - start with big funding and end without an opening? How much capital money sits in mayoral corridors with no visible final product? Galeb isn't somebody's isolated tragedy - it's the symbol of a specific administrative syndrome. The ship could in good time become a European-class tourist attraction. As it stands, it's an expensive memorial that costs more every year.