It’s too early to measure what effect coronavirus will have on the Italian economy. What we do know is that it will be catastrophic in the European country hardest hit by the pandemic. Yet when the European Council met on March 26, at least promising a shared response to the economic difficulties resulting from the crisis, Italian premier Giuseppe Conte refused to put his name to its feeble conclusions. A further Eurogroup meeting ended on April 9 with a watered-down compromise — but one little able to help the country through the mounting crisis.

Contrary to what Rome had hoped, the April 9 Eurogroup agreement did not include so-called “coronabonds” to share out the burden of debt across Europe — instead centering on loans to Italy from the European Stability Mechanism (ESM). The Italian government’s only “achievement” was that these loans won’t be subject to conditionalities . . . except that they must be dedicated to coronavirus-linked health care spending. The Eurogroup thus made a merely symbolic concession to a country desperate for far more help — with significant funds needed to ward off economic collapse and prop up the incomes of the hardest-hit classes.

Already, faced with the lack of European help in the early phases of the crisis, the signs were that Italian public opinion was massively turning against the European Union. In a survey in late March, only 49 percent of those polled called themselves “pro-European,” as against 64 percent before the epidemic began; no wonder, when 72 percent think the European Union has failed to help Italy address the crisis and 77 percent expect continued stormy relations between Italy and the European Union.