With June approaching, and with it the first chance for Bulgaria to lift its veto, Prime Minister Dimitar Kovacevski sought to downplay expectations. Speaking to the press from Brussels, Kovacevski said that he does not want to get tied to dates when the accession talks would finally begin.

We need realistic projects and realistic talks that will be led with the EU and the Republic of Bulgaria. There are additional challenges, given that the previous Bulgarian Government placed the veto. We opened a new process of talks on several areas. We resolved one of our issues, regarding the use of the short form of our name and that allowed us to sign a cross-border cooperation treaty with the EU. The other 4 + 1 issues are worked on by the Foreign Ministries. At the moment we don’t have a document that is aligned, Kovacevski said.

He insisted that he never mentioned June as a date when the accession talks could be lifted. This was done by his Bulgarian counterpart Kiril Petkov shortly after he assumed office, but Petkov later withdrew the optimistic announcement.