Hello and welcome to the Intelligence on Economist Radio.

I'm your host, Jason Palmer.

Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

The young president of El Salvador, Naya Bukele,

came to power last year as a social media savvy force for change in the country's deadlocked politics.

Since then, he's shown tendencies that may make him Latin America's first millennial dictator.

And, until recently, it would have been tricky to find Indonesians with a sunburn.

Most people prize pale skin or don't expose it at all.

But a false belief that sunlight can neutralize the coronavirus has people across the country soaking up the rays.

First up, though.

The European Commission would like to kickstart transport and tourism across the continent.

On Wednesday, its vice president, Margretta Vestaka, recommended a gradual lifting of restrictions

that had aimed to slow the spread of coronavirus.

It's carefully reopened borders within Europe.

So we have adopted guidance for a member state on a gradual, coordinated lifting of restrictions on the free movements in Europe.

But so far, that reopening is happening on a piecemeal basis.

Today, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania opened their shared borders.

Tomorrow, Germany will completely open its frontier with Luxembourg.

And in the Czech Republic, we'll keep their Western borders closed until at least mid-June.

This fractured reopening of Europe is something of a mirror on divides within the Union that the pandemic is making worse.

A public health crisis has turned into an economic one, and is fast becoming political, constitutional, possibly even existential.

The hard-won ties across the continent are being stretched, threatening a project that started with a modest accord aimed only at peace.

...