A COVID-19 test for the European Union

Over the past decade or so, the European Union has weathered the global financial crisis, a migrant crisis, and the rise of populist nationalism. Sure, it's taken its fair share of bumps and bruises along the way, but the idea of a largely borderless Europe united by common democratic values has survived more or less intact.

Then came the coronavirus. The global pandemic, in which Europe is now one of the two main epicentres, is a still-spiralling nightmare that could make those previous crises look benign by comparison. Here are a few different ways that COVID-19 is severely testing the 27-member bloc:

The economic crisis: Lockdowns intended to stop the virus' spread have brought economic activity to a screeching halt, and national governments are going to need to spend a lot of money to offset the impact. But some EU members can borrow those funds more easily than others. Huge debt loads and deficits in southern European countries like Italy and Spain, which have been hardest hit by the outbreak so far, make it costlier for them to borrow than more fiscally conservative Germany and other northern member states. In the aftermath of the global financial crisis, this imbalance nearly led the bloc's common currency, the Euro, to unravel.

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Your data or your life?

As governments around the world scramble to manage the coronavirus outbreak, the location data tracked by your mobile phone has become a highly sought-after commodity. Authorities in China, Israel, Russia, the US, and even the uber-privacy-conscious European Union have either secured access to mobile phone location data that they can use to identify people at risk of infection, or they are trying to get their hands on it.

But is this really a good idea? Here are the arguments for and against:

This is an emergency, track everyone: If there were ever a time to set concerns about privacy aside, this is it. Giving public health authorities access to everyone's location data gives them a better chance of tracking down people who have been in contact with confirmed cases – and helps ensure that those who are already sick stay in quarantine. Right now, governments need all the help they can get. Give them the data. Debates about the privacy implications can wait.

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Non-coronavirus news: Joe vs Bernie, Russia vs Saudi

What's next for the Democrats? Joe Biden swept primaries in Florida, Illinois and Arizona on Tuesday night, racking up a wide margin of victory against Senator Bernie Sanders, his main opponent in the race for the Democratic nomination for president. Sanders would now need to win about 6 in 10 of all remaining delegates to gain the party's nod. That's improbable given Biden's strong support, particularly among older voters, who turned out despite coronavirus fears. Sanders will now be under intense pressure to exit the race, to allow the Democratic party's presumptive nominee to focus his time and resources on defeating Donald Trump at a time when traditional political rallies have become impossible and daily life for millions of Americans is being turned rapidly upside-down. We're watching to see what Bernie decides to do.

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The other coronavirus contagion concern

As governments around the world put their countries on lockdown to slow the spread of the coronavirus, there is a growing fear that the global economy and financial system could soon experience another kind of contagion. This week, as the scope of the outbreak became clearer, dire economic data from China and forecasts of a looming global recession started rolling in. Some experts are even starting to use the dreaded D-word, drawing comparisons with the 1929 financial and economic crash that led to the Great Depression.

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The high-stakes fight against coronavirus

As anxiety about the coronavirus outbreak continues to mount, it's worth taking a step back and looking at how different countries have handled this global health emergency. Here's a quick roundup:

China bungled its early response to the new and deadly virus when it first emerged in the city of Wuhan in December. It's only just now starting to get things back under control after a severe crackdown that imposed huge economic and social costs on its 1.4 billion-strong population. Contrast China's aggressive and apparently effective measures with those of Iran, where an authoritarian government exacerbated its early mistakes by refusing to cordon off infected areas and – allegedly – covering up the true number of cases, resulting in a sharply climbing death toll.

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Coronavirus is teaching us a lesson

As the new coronavirus, known as COVID-19, continues to spread, it's exposing some uncomfortable truths about our increasingly interconnected and globalized world.

Here are two:

Fragile supply chains: Decades of fine-tuning global manufacturing have given billions of people access to quality consumer goods at affordable prices. That's the upside of globalization. But the same trend has concentrated production of important items in certain countries, creating new vulnerabilities. For example, regions of China and broader Asia that produce most of the world's smartphones have been forced to idle or cut manufacturing because of the outbreak. The decline in Chinese factory activity has been so pronounced, it's actually visible from space. And US officials recently warned of drug shortages due to the shuttering of factories in China that make essential ingredients for some important medicines.

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Europe and the US are facing a rift over technology

The risk of a major technology blow-up between the US and Europe is growing. A few weeks ago, we wrote about how the European Union wanted to boost its "technological sovereignty" by tightening its oversight of Big Tech and promoting its own alternatives to big US and Chinese firms in areas like cloud computing and artificial intelligence.

Last week, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and her top digital officials unveiled their first concrete proposals for regulating AI, and pledged to invest billions of euros to turn Europe into a data superpower.

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