Giuseppe Conte in his office in Rome this Thursday. - AFP

Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte calls on the European Union "not to make tragic mistakes" in the face of the coronavirus, otherwise "the entire European structure risks losing its raison d'être", in an interview with the daily Il Sole 24 Ore published this Saturday.

"Inertia would leave our children the immense burden of a devastated economy," said the Prime Minister in the columns of the daily newspaper of reference for economic and financial circles. "We want to be up to this challenge? So let's launch a great plan, a "European Recovery and Reinvestment Plan", which supports and revives the entire European economy. "

"Hard and frank confrontation" with Merkel

At the European Council on Thursday, "more than a disagreement, there was a hard and frank confrontation" with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, "because we are experiencing a crisis that takes a large number of victims in our fellow citizens and is causing a severe economic recession ”.

"I represent a country that is suffering a lot and I cannot afford to procrastinate," he observed, while Italy has registered more than 9,000 deaths since the arrival of the pandemic in the peninsula. “In Italy, but also in other member states, we are forced to make tragic choices. And to warn: "We must avoid making tragic choices in Europe. If Europe does not rise to this unprecedented challenge, the whole European structure risks losing, in the eyes of our own citizens, its raison d'être. "

The European stability mechanism not adapted, according to Conte

During the European Council, “to my colleagues who reasoned in terms of MES [European Stability Mechanism, Crisis Management Device created in 2012], I replied that there was no need to run out, because that this is not what we need now, "he continues. “The MES is an instrument developed to help member states facing financial tensions linked to asymmetric shocks. The coronavirus, on the contrary, is causing a symmetrical shock, with the effect of plunging into depression, in a synchronous and totally unexpected way, our economic and social systems. "

Giuseppe Conte sees in it “something completely different compared to the 2008 crisis. We are at a critical moment in European history”.

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