FirstFT: Ukraine urges EU leaders not to be ‘negative’ on accession

Ukraine’s deputy prime minister has urged European allies to avoid “negative messaging” about its prospects of becoming a member of the EU and stated she sees “no main obstacles” stopping formal accession talks from beginning as early as this 12 months.

Olha Stefanishyna claimed Kyiv was delivering “very quick” on its political reforms, however some nations didn’t need to be “pushed to take any selections”, whereas others linked the method to the state of play on EU enlargement within the west Balkans, the place accession has been stalled for a decade.

Whereas EU leaders have avoided public feedback crucial of Ukraine’s membership ambitions, some capitals have privately chastised each Ukrainian officers for anticipating the method to be accomplished in speedy time and the bloc’s management for encouraging these hopes.

Ukraine’s prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, has stated he envisages a two-year timetable for the nation to hitch the EU, however diplomats warn discuss of such an accelerated course of will elevate false hope among the many Ukrainian public.

EU leaders acknowledged Kyiv’s “appreciable efforts” on reforms in an announcement after their summit on Friday however didn’t present a collective judgment on how a lot progress Ukraine had made.

5 extra tales within the information

1. US shoots down fourth aerial object The US army shot down a high-altitude object over Lake Huron yesterday, within the fourth operation of its form this month over the skies of North America. Whereas US officers have described the primary object as a Chinese language spy balloon, they haven’t publicly recognized the origin of the three different objects.

2. Olaf Scholz’s get together loses Berlin election The conservative Christian Democratic Union has won elections in Berlin in a blow for German chancellor Olaf Scholz and his get together, the left-of-centre Social Democrats who’ve ruled town in shifting coalitions for the final 22 years. It’s the get together’s worst efficiency within the German capital because the second world battle.

3. Goldman CEO says he ought to have reduce jobs earlier David Solomon informed a personal gathering of round 400 Goldman Sachs companions in Miami this week that he had erred by not cutting jobs earlier last year. “Each bone in my physique believed we must be far more aggressive,” Solomon stated, acknowledging that had he taken motion earlier, cuts would have been much less drastic than the three,200 jobs axed final month.

4. Israel on brink of ‘constitutional collapse’, president warns In a primetime deal with yesterday night time, Isaac Herzog appealed to the brand new hardline authorities to delay a contested judicial overhaul, warning that mounting political polarisation had left the nation “on the brink of constitutional and social collapse”.

5. Zambia rejects China’s name to contain World Financial institution Zambian finance minister Situmbeko Musokotwane has rejected a name by China, its largest creditor, to have the World Financial institution and different multilateral lenders be part of a restructuring of the country’s $13bn in external debt, three years after defaulting on it. He warned that delays to the aid have been holding again financial restoration in Africa’s second-biggest copper producer.

The day forward

Financial information The European Fee publishes its winter interim financial forecast, and Switzerland releases its January client value index.

UAE summit The three-day World Government Summit begins in Dubai. Audio system embrace the presidents of Estonia, Senegal and Uruguay.

Germany Residents of Dresden will maintain a candlelit vigil to commemorate victims of the intensive aerial bombing of town through the second world battle. Considerations have been raised that far-right teams will maintain protests.

UK strikes Greater than 100 staff on the British Museum start every week of commercial motion, whereas Driver and Automobile Licensing Company staff in Swansea stage a five-day walkout.

Nato chief speaks Jens Stoltenberg addresses the press forward of a two-day assembly of Nato defence ministers in Brussels this week. Nato allies have been below strain from Kyiv to provide jets to Ukraine.

Company outcomes Rothschild & Co reviews 2022 outcomes after the household announced plans to delist from the Paris inventory change. Arista Networks, Cadence Design Programs, Denny’s, Lend-Lease, Michelin, SolarEdge Applied sciences and Zee Leisure Enterprises additionally report.

Be a part of us on February 22 on the Way forward for Enterprise Training: Highlight on MBA, a free one-day virtual event targeted on offering alternatives for bold people seeking to speed up their careers. The FT can be launching a brand new six-part e-mail sequence that may take you thru each stage of making use of for an MBA. You can register for that here.

What else we’re studying

What’s Andy Jassy’s imaginative and prescient for Amazon? Since he took over in 2021, Amazon has misplaced $1tn in market worth. Ecommerce income fell final 12 months for the primary time within the group’s 28-year historical past, with job cuts that may have an effect on 18,000 individuals — the biggest of any large tech firm. Does Andy Jassy simply have unfortunate timing, or do the issues at the ecommerce giant run deeper?

How English soccer grew to become the actual Tremendous League The European Tremendous League could have failed, however after an onslaught of spending on new gamers by Premier League golf equipment, many within the sport at the moment are questioning if it has become a de facto super league, the place superior monetary muscle is leaving the remainder of European soccer behind.

Premium readers can sign up to our Scoreboard newsletter for extra on the enterprise of sport.

You are seeing a snapshot of an interactive graphic. This is most likely due to being offline or JavaScript being disabled in your browser.

Opinion: Six explanation why Credit score Suisse nonetheless seems horrible It has been a 12 months since Axel Lehmann took over as chair of accident-prone Credit score Suisse and about half that since Ulrich Körner grew to become chief government. However they’ve but to stem the issues at Switzerland’s second-biggest financial institution, writes Patrick Jenkins, and six numbers from the group’s annual results show why.

What’s the position of cultural understanding? Over Lunch with the FT, Taiwanese-American scholar of Chinese language literature Jing Tsu shares why the west and China misunderstand each other — and the way tradition can carry them nearer collectively. “China has been a diligent understudy of the west for greater than two centuries now,” she says. “And it all the time strikes me that the west doesn’t know China practically as effectively.”

Quake stokes Turkish tensions over Syrian refugees For Turkey’s practically 4mn Syrian refugees who fled civil battle of their homeland, the devastating earthquake raised fears that their hopes for a secure place to name dwelling had been dashed as soon as once more. The quake struck at a time of worsening public hostility towards Syrians in Turkey, exacerbated by a value of dwelling disaster and a normal election that may additional politicise their plight.

• Associated: Turkish prosecutors have issued arrest warrants for scores of builders because the dying toll from final week’s earthquake tops 33,000.

You are seeing a snapshot of an interactive graphic. This is most likely due to being offline or JavaScript being disabled in your browser.

Take a break from the information

TikTok and YouTube have turn out to be star-makers for a handful of people that have turned their properties into content material farms. Meet the influencers amassing thousands of followers and utilizing their platform to fund bold initiatives.