A coalition of ideologically divergent parties ousted on Sunday the hawk Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's longest-serving prime minister, and formed a new government in a seismic shift in the country's turbulent politics. After holding its fourth general elections in a little over two years this March, Israel is set to have a new face at its helm - the leader of the country's religious right, a politician whose dream is to annex most of the Palestinian West Bank.

US President Joe Biden arrives in Europe in a complicated and risky mission to summon allies and put pressure on enemies. And here comes the time for him to prove that he is more than “not another Trump”. Biden's visits, to NATO on 14 June and then the European Union for brief summits, following his attendance at the G7 in Britain, will be more than symbolic.

While it is undisputed that this pandemic has had a horrible impact on our societies and economies, it has also challenged and mobilised us to think about – and do – the extraordinary. With the strong backing of this Parliament and our Member States, we have launched an unprecedented financial assistance package. And we have done so at record speed.

The European Union vowed to launch a new round of sanctions against Belarus linked to the forced landing of Ryanair flight FR4978, which was followed by the arrest of an opposition journalist who was on board of the carrier. The message is simple - no one is allowed to simply hijack an airplane because there could be a political opponent travelling or for another personal reason. The lesson was supposed to be taught to Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko.

With a total budget of €95,5bn, Horizon Europe will be the world’s largest multi-country research and innovation programme. It comes at a critical moment of the European Union’s history. 

The Covid-19 pandemic opened new opportunities both for business and politics. Vaccination roll-out is very far from moving at equal speeds in all countries. The greedy West rushed to stockpile billions of jabs, lock down all ingredients for vaccine production, halt all exports of vaccines and speed up vaccination of its own population. Now the countries that lead the mass vaccination process are mulling Covid-19 passports and a wide range of bureaucracy tools, aimed to switch the pandemic exit into economic supremacy.

One year into the pandemic, the European Union (EU) has shown the ability to react to the deepest social and economic crisis since World War II. The EU has shown that it resolutely supports national health systems and counters the socio-economic impact of the pandemic by taking unprecedented measures at both national and EU level. 

I am the first woman to be President of the European Commission. I am the President of the European Commission. And this is how I expected to be treated when visiting Turkey two weeks ago, like a Commission President, but I was not.

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush - or caution brings safety - has become a slogan of bank customers during the pandemic. Before Covid-19 hit, the global economy was on the rise - companies were not hesitant to take out loans, investing in new business ventures and creating jobs, individuals were taking out mortgages as well as consumer loans to finance renovation works, vacations or car purchases. In the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic outbreak, however, the world stood still.

A large portion of the modern world's wealth has been siphoned away by the Covid-19 pandemic. A logical step to internationally offset that could be the redistribution of global resources. Such actions have been widely supported by the World Bank and the UN, with the two organisations proposing that the biggest winners from pandemic-driven processes share some of their accumulated profits. It is still unclear if and to what extent such an appeal would be heeded as in the real world policies based on logical links are rarely pursued.