On Thursday 26 March, the European Commission confirmed that is in permanent contact with the Chinese authorities about organising the shipping of equipment pledged by China to help EU countries contain the COVID-19 epidemic.
“In theory, this assistance will be earmarked for Italy. We hope it will arrive as soon as possible, but we don't know exactly when that will be”, a senior European Commission official told EUROPE, adding that “we don’t know the operational details yet”.
The assistance includes the two million surgical masks, 200,000 N95 masks and 50,000 screening test kits that Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang promised Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and which she announced on 18 March (see EUROPE 12450/1).
The Commission is in discussion with six Member States that have volunteered to host the strategic reserve of medical equipment that has recently been created as part of the EU Civil Protection Mechanism to help European countries that do not have sufficient capacity to deal with the crisis.
“We are assessing where the most appropriate place would be to locate the reserves”, the senior official explained, pointing out that it might be good to have more than one location for this equipment. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)