Brilliant intervention from the Swedish foreign minister, but true. Let’s worry less about Putin’s red lines than ensuring Ukraine’s speedy victory. ft.com/content/ab384d…

Great piece - as always - by Andrew Bounds. The EU diplomat he quotes is a reflection of exactly why the EU's approach to Brexit needs fixing (which I just happened to write an FT op-ed about, and which I'm opportunistically plugging again now) 😌🇪🇺 ft.com/content/d0f920…

"...at least we’re talking. That’s the big positive": Henry Foy has the details on how Turkish foreign minister Hakan Fidan's lunch with his EU counterparts went in today's Europe Express -> ft.com/content/16de0b…

Today’s Financial Times Europe Express: 🇹🇷🇪🇺Inside yesterday’s EU-Turkey ministers lunch where membership caused indigestion 🇫🇷🇷🇸Why Serbia bought French fighter jets - Marton Dunai 📈Plus: How Durov’s arrest turned investors sour on Telegram Read & subscribe👇 ft.com/content/16de0b…

"When hostile missiles are on course of entering our airspace, it would be legitimate self-defence [to shoot them down]" Poland has ‘duty’ to shoot down Russian missiles over Ukraine, says Radosław Sikorski 🇵🇱🇪🇺 tells Raphael Minder, despite Nato opposition ft.com/content/5f7550… @ft

Belgium to nominate Hadja Lahbib as its European Commissioner candidate, shortly after Romania drops its male nominee for a woman - Roxana Mînzatu - instead. Comes after president Ursula Ursula von der Leyen restated her demand for female candidates to fill key roles in her next admin

As many in Brussels push for a new joint borrowing fund, Paola Tamma reports that the the original is unlikely to be spent by a 2026 deadline. Plus Javier Espinoza on possible reversal of a Comission fine. EE with Laura Dubois Henry Foy on.ft.com/3TduhNm via @financialtimes

Big scoop from alicemhancock, who has Ursula Ursula von der Leyen’s blueprint for how to appease the EU’s angry farmers EU urged to overhaul €387bn farm subsidies regime - report to be released later this morning ft.com/content/967f6e… via @ft

EU should double the size of its budget, cut farming subsidies, and include the UK in a defence production single market, Bruegel experts say in their pitch to the new commission All the details in today’s Financial Times Europe Express ft.com/content/8f6a52…

At Ramstein today, Zelensky pushes US to allow long-range strikes in Russia "We need to make Russian cities and even Russian soldiers think about what they need, peace or Putin, and it is realistic to push them to choose peace." w/ Felicia Schwartz Henry Foy ft.com/content/0b7ae1…

💥Spain’s tenacious deputy PM Teresa Ribera 🌹 in frame for EU’s top competition job as one of the world’s most important antitrust tsars, as capitals jostle for key roles in Ursula von der Leyen 2.0 ft.com/content/34e74c… @ft w Andrew Bounds Javier Espinoza