The Italian government estimates that GDP will fall by nine per cent for the whole of this year. But most international institutions, such as the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Commission, expect a drop deeper than ten per cent.

"In our view, despite the macroeconomic uncertainties, these steps provide the Italian authorities with an opportunity to resume economic growth and to turn around in a deteriorating budgetary situation," S&P said.

On the other side, it predicted that the eurozone's third-largest economy would not return to pre-coronary crisis levels until 2023. Europe became the second region after Latin America to surpass 250,000 deaths on Saturday. The leaders were Southern European countries which reported their highest number of COVID-19 cases in a single day.

Performance of the index FTSE MIB (Source: Tradingview.com)