HELSINKI, May 9 (Xinhua) -- The European Union (EU) must learn lessons from the COVID-19 crisis and draft clear policies for various crises that Europe might face in the future, noted Jutta Urpilainen, a Finnish European Commissioner for International Partnerships, in Helsinki on Saturday.

In an interview with Finnish national broadcaster Yle, Urpilainen said that the speed and extent of the COVID-19 spreading to Europe surprised the European Commission, despite having closely monitored the development of the pandemic.

"Urpilainen says that EU states failed to help Italy enough because they were too focused on their own concerns," Yle said in an online story. "COVID-19 first struck Italy, which asked for help from other member states -- largely in vain."

Urpilainen said that the other EU states did not help Italy enough because they did not have the time or resources to look beyond their own borders, Yle reported.

The situation made it clear that the EU did not have a crisis framework for coping with a pandemic, she said.

"They started to hoard protective gear and thinking 'oh no, what if the situation progresses in the same way in our own country and society?'. In that situation, each one just concentrated on their own society and their own citizens," Urpilainen told Yle.

She said that once the crisis is under control, the EU should scrutinize what had happened in Europe at the beginning of the crisis and what should be learned from it.

"Europe will definitely face different crises in the future. We would be wiser and we would have clear operating models, regulations, and coordination, on how we work together," Urpilainen was quoted as saying.

Born in 1975, Jutta Urpilainen was the former chair of Finland's Social Democratic Party from 2008 to 2014, and the Finance Minister between 2011 and 2014. She became a commissioner in charge of international partnerships in the European Commission in December 2019. Enditem

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