European Commission appoints new Director-General to its health and food safety department

Ms Anne Bucher, the current chair of the Commission's Regulatory Scrutiny Board, will take over as head of the Commission's Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety (DG SANTE) on 1 October.

Ms Bucher, a French national, has been working for the European Commission for 35 years. Throughout her career, she has focused on a variety of policy areas - economy and finance, development and social policy, taxation and information society. She has held management functions for most of her career and has been a senior manager in the Commission's Directorates-General for Economic Affairs and for Communications Networks, Content and Technology, respectively, since 2008.

In March 2016, Ms Bucher became the Chair of the Commission's Regulatory Scrutiny Board (RSB), which the Juncker Commission had put in place at the start of its mandate. In this role, she ensured that the RSB provided independent advice to the College, thus enabling the Commission to deliver on its political priorities and Better Regulation agenda. Among the recent success stories of the RSB, is its contribution to the delivery of over 50 legislative proposals for the sectoral programmes under the new long-term budget of the EU for 2021-2027.

Ms Bucher will bring to her new position solid management experience and a broad view of Commission policies in a variety of areas, which will be essential at times when effective health and food safety management is interlinked with economy and technology. She will be succeeding Mr Xavier Prats Monné who, after a long and distinguished career in the Commission, will retire at the end of September to work with non-profit organisations in the field of education.

Xavier Prats Monné, who joined the Commission with Spain's accession to the EU in 1986, has contributed to shaping Commission policies in areas including employment, culture, youth and sport, health and food safety and foreign affairs. Between 2014 and 2015, he led the Commission's department for education and culture (DG EAC), before becoming the head of DG SANTE in September 2015.

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