The one concrete outcome of the NATO summit is that Zoran Zaev will visit Bulgaria next week, to again ask for the opening of EU accession talks.

Zaev met with Bulgarian President Rumen Radev in Brussels – as Radev is the only leading Bulgarian official with a mandate in the period between ahead of the July elections. Still, Radev himself has said that he can’t alter the consensus decision of the Bulgarian political scene to block Macedonia until Macedonia makes concessions on issues of national identity and history.

Zaev called the dispute “ridiculous” but said that he hopes a new deal will be reached after the elections in Bulgaria on July 11th.

After the elections they will form a political Government which will be able to truly continue work so we can finally come to a solution. We can do it in September, October, December of this year, Zaev said.