Over the last two years, you have undoubtedly been bombarded with notifications and pop-ups regarding your personal data every time you click on a website, and since the introduction of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe, we’ve spent a lot more time thinking about who we grant access to our data, and whether it’s used responsibly, aligned to our consent. These pop-ups are often irritating when scrolling through the Internet and shopping, something that has no doubt been exacerbated under lockdown conditions for all of us.

The World Health Assembly is not normally the focus of worldwide attention. But this year’s session, bringing together all the member states of the World Health Organisation, came during the most serious global pandemic for a century, and at a time of intense political sparring over the origins and course of the disease. Under these circumstances, the assembly turned into a forum for geopolitical manoeuvring between China and the US and highlighted the obstacles to a coordinated global response to the covid-19 crisis.

In mere months coronavirus has changed everything. Authorities across the world are grappling with its implications for public life, scientists are struggling to understand and counter it, and frontline workers are forced to risk their lives in the process; however, amid this exceptional pressure, another, more technical issue is focusing minds: the development and deployment of contract-tracing apps to monitor and contain the spread of the virus by registering public interactions.

One year ago Volodymyr Zelenskiy became President of Ukraine, following a landslide victory. Fed up with corrupt political elites, Ukrainians were hungry for new faces. Zelenskiy fitted the bill.

The recent ruling of the German federal constitutional court (Bundesverfassungsgericht) with regard to asset purchases by the European Central Bank (ECB) has stunned even seasoned observers of European affairs, prompting accusations of the Court going rogue and declaring war on the supranational central bank and the wider European project.

The coronavirus epidemic ranks alongside the rise of terrorism in the 1970s as the worst tragedy that the Italian Republic has ever had to face. In their effort to overcome these tragedies, the Italian people have shown courage, a commendable spirit of sacrifice, and a sense of discipline. The country’s institutions and society have demonstrated remarkable resilience in the face of very difficult circumstances.

It is far too soon to judge how COVID-19 will transform the EU – we are still in the early phases of a story that will last for several years. But one can tentatively say that six trends which emerged before the virus struck are now accelerating: greater economic autarky, a bigger role for national capitals, a strengthening of borders, a backlash against green policies and widening of both east-west and north-south divisions within the EU. In various ways all these trends are likely to help the cause of anti-EU populists.

Six years ago, British author Hanif Kureishi wrote searingly of Europe’s fear of migrants who “invade, colonise and contaminate”. Migrants, he mused, had “no face, no status, no protection and no story”. Kureishi’s angry reflection still resonates. But another more encouraging migration story may, finally, be emerging.

How much does the conscience of a journalist cost? Everything and nothing. Because it is not for sale. Of course, if we are talking about good conscience, and if it is the conscience of a journalist. However, a breed of tip-hungry species have multiplied themselves in the guild (the comparison was drawn by a certain high-paid sample of that same breed, who decided to pose herself as a taxi driver). These people can no longer be qualified as journalists and their conscience is quite elastic. Because they have sold off both their conscience and their profession.

Europe is in the nascent stages of a new debate about China. Last year, the European Union published a strategic outlook paper in which it labelled China as a “systemic rival”, reflecting a sharp change in its balance of assumptions about the Sino-European relationship. The pandemic is tilting that balance further. This is certainly not happening out of preference: European policymakers would rather address the urgent health and economic challenges they face with geopolitical competition largely suspended.