Pier Carlo Padoan said the European Union needed to be more “flexible” as Italy faces the threat of its two wealthiest regions breaking away.
Millions of people in Italian regions Lombardy and Veneto voted overwhelmingly for “yes” in Sunday’s referendum calling to negotiate a better financial arrangement with Rome.
Mr Padoan said the “challenge” for Brussels was to “combine” the workings of the bloc with member states’ national and local demands.
Speaking on Bloomberg, Mr Padoan said: “This is certainly a challenge. We in Europe must find new ways to combine the overall systemic dimension, the European dimension with the national and local dimension.
“We need all of these dimensions in a harmonious way. We need to re-shape our instruments in Europe to make that happen.
“Europe must recognise that there are some European challenges, which require European responses, like migration, like security, like growth and jobs.
“There are national responses which are insufficient, we need to integrate them with a higher level policy.
“These are structural problems and there is a window of opportunity to deal with them because European economy is growing at a healthy rate and there is lots of job creation.