Rome, June 14 (RHC)-- Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte has called for a "courageous plan" when he launched virtual talks with EU and IMF leaders to rescue Italy's economy and society from the "uprecedented shock" triggered by the coronavirus pandemic.     

Conte said the plan was needed to surmount the nation's crisis as Italian opposition figures shunned the hastily organised and roundly criticised emergency talks. The EU's third largest economy is expected to contract by at least 8.3 percent in 2020,

European Union leaders "must show that they have understood that it is about defending mutual interests," Conte said in an opening speech transmitted to leading executives in Brussels.  "We are in the process of living an unprecedented shock with very high human, social and economic costs," Conte said.