The European Union and Turkey Leaders’ Meeting in Bulgaria on March 26 failed to produce major breakthroughs that would help get Ankara’s ambitions to join the European bloc back on track. However, there was a commitment from both sides to continue the dialogue.

The EU, deeply concerned at Turkey’s approach to human rights since it brought in a state of emergency now in effect for more than 20 months since the attempted coup in July 2016, did not obtain any pledge from Turkey to free journalists it has jailed or improve other rights for its citizens, nor did it make significant headway over concerns about the Turkish military invention in Syria—but the meeting allowed for the first major talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in almost year, thus the commitment to continue talking can be taken as something of a breakthrough.

Erdogan, Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, and Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Commission president, met in the Black Sea city of Varna. “We didn’t achieve any kind of concrete compromise today,” Tusk told a news conference held with Erdogan. “I raised all of our concerns. It was a long list, including the rule of law and press freedom, bilateral relations with member states and the situation in Syria.

“Only progress on these issues will allow us to improve EU-Turkey relations, including the accession process,” he said adding: “We agreed that we should continue our dialogue in difficult circumstances.”

Tusk also made a point of saying that “while our relationship is going through difficult times, in areas where we do cooperate, we cooperate well,” and Brussels is not about to underestimate Turkey’s potential importance in helping to stem the turmoil spreading across the Middle East and in addressing geopolitical difficulties posed in relations with Russia and Iran. But relations are complicated because Turkey, which started negotiating EU membership in 2005, has imprisoned more than 50,000 people, including journalists, academics and opposition politicians, in widespread purges since the attempted coup. Scores of civil society groups, media outlets and television stations have been closed.

On the positive side, in the eyes of Juncker and Tusk, Erdogan has helped to substantially cut irregular migration to the continent after agreeing to readmit asylum seekers from the Greek islands under a €6bn package. Erdogan, however, is not happy at how the deal for that move is playing out nor with delays in waiving visas for Turkish tourists visiting EU member states.

After the talks—described by Bulgarian officials as “charged with great tension”—Erdogan complained that the EU has so far made available only €1.8bn of the funds for the care of Syrian refugees. At the same time, Brussels, he said, was unreasonably delaying the ending of visa requirements for Turks traveling to Europe.

Prior to the meeting, Erdogan told reporters that Turkey still regards full EU membership as a strategic goal. But, in terms of the agenda in the shorter term, Erdogan and his officials have lately been lobbying Brussels to update the customs union under which Turkey trades with the EU, its biggest export market. “I hope we have put this difficult period [in relations] behind us,” Erdogan said at the news conference, adding: “Rather than unfair criticism, we expect robust support … It would be a perilous mistake for the EU to exclude Turkey from enlargement.”

“No one expected a breakthrough now, but neither side wants a break-up,” Zeynep Alemdar, chairwoman of the international relations department at Okan university in Istanbul, told the Financial Times. “At a time when most of the bridges with Europe are burning, the best outcome for Turkey was bringing the customs union and visa liberalisation back onto the agenda. It appears there is still a way to go.”