ATHENS (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 27th March, 2020) Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis during a conference call of EU leaders said that Athens viewed the measures taken so far by the bloc to contain the spread of the coronavirus as inappropriate, and insisted on issuing so-called corona bonds to finance an economic response, a governmental source told reporters.
On Thursday evening, the heads of state and government of the 27 EU member states discussed the development of economic measures to overcome the consequences of the global health crisis.
"Mitsotakis said there was an inconsistency between the terms used to describe this crisis � epic, unprecedented, and so on � and the measures that have been taken so far, and called for studying all alternative ways of a unified European response [to the outbreak]," the source said.
According to the source, the prime minister supported the initiative to set up the new debt instrument proposed earlier in the week by nine European states � Italy, France, Belgium, Greece, Portugal, Spain, Ireland, Slovenia and Luxembourg � in a letter to European Council President Charles Michel.
"Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis insisted on issuing corona bonds in line with the contents of the letter signed by the nine leaders, stressing that the nine countries supporting the proposal represent 57 percent of the Eurozone's GDP," the source stated, adding that Mitsotakis urged for bold initiatives to combat the pandemic.
More than 530,000 people have been infected with the coronavirus worldwide, and over 24,000 have died from complications relating to the disease, according to statistics compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
