Italy needs to receive its share of the European Commission's proposed 750 billion euro rescue package "within clear time limits" to help rebuild its Coronavirus-ravaged economy, foreign minister Luigi Di Maio said on Tuesday.
"Negotiations on the recovery fund are continuing. We need to obtain resources from it within clear time limits in order to kick-start our recovery from COVID-19," Di Maio wrote on Facebook.
The proposed 750-billion-euro recovery fund made up of loans and grants has sparked divisions among European Union governments with "frugal" countries like the Netherlands, Austria, Sweden and Denmark insisting the package be only based on loans that need to be paid back later.
Italy, whose economic output the European Commission expects to plunge by 11.2% this year- more than any other EU country - and where national statistics agency Istat predicts one in three companies is likely to fail, stands to receive nearly 173 billion euros from the fund.
