Austrian President Alexander van der Bellen launched a push to try to get Bulgaria to lift its veto against Macedonia’s EU accession talks.

Bellen had lengthy phone conversations with Zoran Zaev and with Bulgarian President Rumen Radev yesterday afternoon. The push comes ahead of the European Council on December 14th, where Macedonia hopes that Bulgaria will lift its veto. Radev told Bellen that Bulgaria expects concrete results from Macedonia before it can approve the opening of EU accession talks.