MILAN: Italy’s Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte warned Wednesday that the EU’s recovery plan needed to be more ambitious or the bloc risked fueling nationalism and widening long-term divisions. While he welcomed the surprise entente between Berlin and Paris to back a 500 billion euro ($550 billion) rescue plan as “a bold and significant step,” he said “much more needs to be done.” “The coronavirus crisis is a symmetric shock, affecting all countries and regions, that cannot be effectively faced by individual countries alone,” he said in an op-ed on the politico.eu news website. He said Europe could not afford to repeat the mistakes of the past “by doing too little or reacting too slowly,” and warned failure to act swiftly would result in “a sharp widening of divergences among EU member countries.” Some were “exerting pressure for a ‘business-as-usual’ European budget and a modest recovery fund, with a negligible share of grants,” a stance which showed they had failed to grasp the seriousness of the situation, he said. “If we allow the coronavirus crisis to increase the EU’s economic and social divergences... we will fan the flames of nationalism and widen long-term divisions in our union,” he warned. Four European countries — Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden — are expected to propose an alternative to the Franco-German recovery plan, asking for more guarantees that states receiving aid will adopt reforms. They will also say aid should take the form of loans rather than grants, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said Wednesday.