VMRO-DPMNE is pulling out the same line again, this time dressed up as a question about constitutional amendments: while European institutions praise North Macedonia's progress, the argument goes, it is opposition leader Venko Filipche who insists that constitutional changes are the only reform on offer - and he does so, they claim, on the same wavelength as Bulgarian president Rumen Radev.

The ruling party leans on its pats on the back from Brussels - it notes that the President of the European Council and the Commission see Macedonia as a regional leader with results. From there it builds its punchline: if Europe is happy, why does the opposition insist precisely on constitutional changes, a question that has historically meant, for many Macedonians, a concession under pressure?

The rhetoric goes further still. Filipche is called an "agent" of Radev, ready to make national and identity compromises, and the constitutional changes get compared to Zoran Zaev's name deal - even billed as "a bigger betrayal." This is the language we know from every election season: the other side isn't just wrong, it's a national enemy.

Skepticism is warranted toward both camps here. VMRO-DPMNE is speaking as a party facing possible elections, and it has a clear interest in this framing - to cast itself as the defender of identity and the opposition as a threat. That doesn't make the constitutional question trivial; on the contrary, it's one of the hardest Macedonia faces. But when a complex matter of state gets boiled down to the label "agent," the loser is the debate itself.

The question a voter should be asking isn't who called whom a traitor, but something harder: what do the constitutional changes actually demand, who benefits from them, and what does Macedonia gain or lose in each scenario? On that question, not a single statement - not from the government, not from the opposition - gives an honest answer. And while the labels fly, that is exactly the question left without a real debate.