EU suspends delivery of 10M Chinese masks over quality

BRUSSELS — The European Commission said Thursday it has suspended the delivery of 10 million Chinese masks to member states and Britain after two countries complained about the poor quality of the batches they received.

As part of its efforts to tackle the COVID-19 crisis, this month the EU’s executive arm started dispatching the masks to health care workers.

After 1.5 million masks were shipped to 17 of the 27 member states and Britain, Poland’s health minister Lukasz Szumowski said the 600,000 items Polish authorities received did not have European certificates and failed to comply with required medical standards.

The whole stock of masks was purchased from a Chinese provider via an EU fund.

The masks were to be distributed in installments over a six-week span.