Coronavirus: Italian prime minister fears EU could collapse because of pandemic

Giuseppe Conte also warned without testing, countries are 'fighting virus in the dark'

Italian prime minister Giuseppe Conte has warned that the EU could fail over the response to coronavirus.

He said that the union has to work in a more co-ordinated way to fight the outbreak, or risks collapsing altogether.

With the Italian economy set to contract and debt set to inevitably spiral, Conte, speaking to the BBC, reiterated his desire for an increased social and economic response on the European level.

“It’s a big challenge to existence of Europe and the history of Europe, we’re not just writing pages in the books of economics, we’re writing pages in history books,” Conte said.

“This is a big appointment with history and we cannot miss it. Myself and other European leaders need to rise to the challenge. There’s no doubt that if our response is not strong and unified, if Europe fails to come up with a monetary and financial policy adequate for the biggest challenge since the Second World War, for sure, not only Italians, but European citizens will be deeply disappointed.

“If we do not seize the opportunity to put new life into the European project, the risk of failure is real. I won’t allow it to materialise, I want to banish [the risk].”

The crisis in Italy has begun to ease in recent days with the daily death toll dropping from nearly 1,000 two weeks ago to 542 fatalities in the last 24 hours.

As of Thursday morning, there have been 139,422 cases of Covid-19 and 17,669 deaths in Italy, compared to 61,474 cases and 7,097 deaths in the UK, according to figures from Johns Hopkins University.

Conte also warned the UK that without mass testing, any response to the outbreak is akin to fighting the coronavirus “in the dark”.

Giuseppe Conte insists greater testing has aided the fight against the coronavirus (AFP via Getty)

Italy, which has been in lockdown since 9 March, believes the large number of cases is largely due to increased testing, with nearly double the UK’s daily testing, which has averaged around 14,000 tests per day.

Conte, when asked what advice he would offer the UK, emphasised the importance of testing to the country, which has rolled out 50,000 in the last day alone.

“For sure, performing tests means trying to bring this situation more under control,” Conte said.

“Without testing it would mean having to cope with it [the coronavirus] in the dark.”