An ordinance signed by Italian Health Minister Roberto Speranza on Thursday bans the entry of people arriving from at-risk countries into Italy due to the coronavirus, ANSA reported.

Meeting in Madrid on Wednesday the prime ministers of Italy Giuseppe Conte and of Spain Pedro Sanchez agreed a Recovery Fund deal must be reached by the EU by the end of this month, ANSA reported.

After weeks of fraught political negotiation, the Italian government approved on Tuesday a package of measures aimed at cutting the complicated red tape that has long been blamed for crimping growth in the Eurozone’s third-largest economy, news wires reported.

The NGO-run migrant-rescue ship the Ocean Viking was still anchored off the Sicilian port of Porto Empedocle on Monday with 180 asylum seekers on board in compliance with orders from the Italian authorities, ANSA reported.

Italian police on Wednesday seized 14 tonnes of drugs produced by Islamic State group in Syria, ANSA reported. The 84 million pills, the biggest haul ever, had a street value of over €1bn.

Italy approved a decree offering state guarantees for a €6.3bn loan to Fiat Chrysler’s Italian unit, paving the way for the largest crisis loan to a European carmaker,  news wires reported. Italy’s audit court had signed off on the decree, in a final step of what had been a lengthy and contested process to get the loan approved, said a source close to the matter. The court’s approval follows an earlier endorsement by the economy ministry.

Italy is considering a new spending package worth €15-20bn to help its battered economy through the COVID-19 crisis, which will push its budget deficit beyond 11% of national output, a government source told Reuters.

Italy's PM Conte said on Wednesday that the positions of EU Member States on the Recovery Fund were still far apart, ahead of the EU leaders summit this week, ANSA reported. Italy is set to be the top beneficiary as the country hardest hit by COVID-19 if the European Commission's proposal for a €750bn fund is approved.

Sources at Venezuela's embassy in Rome on Monday told ANSA that a report in Spanish daily ABC that Venezuela funded Italy's anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S) in 2010 was all false.The embassy sources said the report was "false and absurd" adding that the Venezuelan authorities would take legal action. The sources added that the movement was "totally unknown in Venezuela" in 2010. The M5S was founded in 2009.

Italy would not be able easily to return to normality after the coronavirus crisis but should turn  it  into an opportunity to reform the country, PM Giuseppe Conte said on Saturday. “This is the time to work on a clear project to come out of the crisis,” Conte said in the opening speech of a nine-day policy consultation in Rome. “We must take advantage to turn the crisis into an opportunity, and remove all the obstacles that have slowed (Italy) down,” he added cited by the news wires.