Italian politicians took out a full-page advertisement in one of Germany's most prestigious newspapers on Tuesday, urging parsimonious northern Europe to do more to help the south through the coronavirus crisis amid an increasingly bitter rift within the EU.

MPs and mayors from across the Italian political spectrum implored Germany for help and lashed out at the Netherlands in the pages of Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Germany's leading conservative daily.

They urged Berlin to drop its opposition to a proposed EU scheme to issue so-called "coronabonds" to raise funds to fight the crisis.

And they accused the Netherlands, which has led opposition to the scheme, of operating as a tax haven and diverting revenue from other member states.

"Dear German friends, with the coronavirus the shared history of the Western world has once again taken centre stage," they wrote. "Today the EU does not have the means to respond to the crisis in a united front. If it does not prove that it exists, it will cease to exist."