Miltiadis Varvitsiotis, Greece’s alternate minister of foreign affairs | Yannis Kolesidis EU response to corona crisis ‘poor,’ says senior Greek official There’s a ‘sentiment that Europe is returning to the nation-state,’ says Miltiadis Varvitsiotis.

There has been a lack of political will to address the coronavirus crisis at the European level, Greece’s alternate minister of foreign affairs said Wednesday.

“The overall rating of EU reaction is poor,” Miltiadis Varvitsiotis, who is responsible for European affairs, told POLITICO in a phone interview, pointing to a lack of “early health guidelines” and other forms of coordination.

Citing a videoconference last week in which EU leaders clashed over the economic response to the crisis, Varvitsiotis said: “I think that gives us the sentiment that Europe is returning to the nation-state and is moving away from what should have been a common European response to a common — to a global — challenge.”

Greece was among the signatories of a letter sent March 25 to European Council President Charles Michel calling for work “on a common debt instrument issued by a European institution to raise funds on the market on the same basis and to the benefits of all Member States.”

The issue has split European countries along a north-south divide, with the Dutch in particular coming under criticism for going too far in rejecting the idea of a common debt instrument, and has also reopened wounds from the eurozone crisis a decade ago.

Athens’ concerns are “in line” with those of Italy and Spain, Varvitsiotis said.

“The fact that almost half of the GDP of the EU understand this idea of the coronavirus bond, is something that shows that there is a soul-searching and solution-searching process in some parts of Europe, in a great part of Europe,” he said. "Leaders that neglect to see the necessity, actually they undermine the cry for help from the countries that have been harshly hit from this crisis, which ... wasn't their fault.”

“It's not like 2010,” he said.

Varvitsiotis signaled that Greece is willing to look at a range of options, as long as action is taken.

“Either we call it a coronavirus bond, or we call it a solidarity pact, or a Marshall plan, as it has been called from others, or a post-Corona plan … it doesn’t matter,” he said. “The thing is, is there the political will? And if there is the political will, then we can find the best way to deal with that. We can use the money from the budget, we can use extraordinary funds, we can give facilitations, we can give a cash inflow.”

“Until now we haven’t got the commitment, the political commitment, that there is the will to deal with this crisis in a proper way that actually will calm the markets and will give a reassurance to our citizens that Europe is there for them,” he said.

Greece had as of Wednesday morning reported a total of 1,314 coronavirus cases and a death toll of 49, according to POLITICO’s coronavirus data tracker.