Italian prime minister Giuseppe Conte said the European Union (EU) needed to act in a ‘coordinated’ way to help countries hit by the virus or the project of European unity could fail.
He delivered this warning in an interview with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).
Italy has been arguing that the EU should issue ‘corona bonds’, through which all EU member states could share the debt incurred during the crisis. The Netherlands has been the leading opponent of the idea.
Conte went on to say that Europe had not faced a threat like this since the Second World War, and that Europe’s leadership was ‘facing an appointment with history’.
‘If we do not seize the opportunity to put new life into the European project, the risk of failure is real.’
Italy has been one of the worst-hit countries, with over 130 000 cases and more than 17 000 deaths so far, and is expected to suffer economically due to the virus and the associated shut-down of the country.