Figure 19 – Average number of EU leaders' tweets on Brexit and Covid 19, January 2019-June 2020

When examining crisis-related tweets by EU leaders, on Brexit and the coronavirus, changes in frequency can clearly be identified according to events. Regarding Brexit, tweets by EU leaders reached their peak in March 2019. While still reaching peaks in October 2019, when the European Council endorsed the revised UK Withdrawal Agreement and approved a revised political declaration, and in January 2020, when the UK finally left the EU, the concentration of tweets on Brexit steadily declined, until nearly disappearing completely as an issue in EU leaders’ tweets after February 2020.
The opposite trend is evident for tweets concerning coronavirus. Before February 2020, the issue was absent from EU leaders’ Twitter output, but the number of tweets sky-rocketed subsequently, to peak in March 2020.