Europe needs 'self-sufficiency' in mask production: Merkel

Europe must develop "self-sufficiency" in producing masks "as something that we learn out of this pandemic" of COVID-19, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Monday.

"Regardless of the fact that this market is presently installed in Asia... we need a certain self-sufficiency, or at least a pillar of our own manufacturing" in Germany or elsewhere in the European Union, Merkel told reporters in Berlin.