European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety

European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety
Incumbent Stella Kyriakides since 1 December 2019
Appointer	President of the European Commission
Inaugural holder	Richard Burke
Formation	1977

The Commissioner for Health and Food Safety is the member of the European Commission. The current Commissioner is Stella Kyriakides. The portfolio is responsible for matters of public health, food safety, animal health and plant health.

Portfolio

Markos Kyprianou was appointed to the Barroso Commission as European Commissioner for Health & Consumer Protection; however, with the accession of Bulgaria on 1 January 2007, the Consumer Protect portfolio was split off and given to Meglena Kuneva (See: European Commissioner for Consumer Protection). The post's Directorate-General is still merged with that office.

One policy is the promotion of warnings on tobacco packets, with the Commission moving towards pictorial warnings.^[1] Following several European Union member states enacting bans on smoking in public places Kyprianou proposed a plan for an EU-wide ban of that kind.^[2]

In May 2007, Kyprianou released a paper to tackle the shortage of organ donation in the Union. The plan included promotion, specially trained medical staff and an EU wide organ donor card.^[3] After Kyprianou was appointed Foreign Minister of Cyprus, he was replaced by Androulla Vasiliou on 3 March 2008.

List of commissioners

#		Country	Period	Commission
1	Richard Burke	Ireland	1977–1981	Jenkins
2	Karl-Heinz Narjes	West Germany	1981–1985	Thorn
3	Stanley Clinton Davis	United Kingdom	1985–1988	Delors I
4	Grigoris Varfis	Greece	1985–1989	Delors I
5	Karel Van Miert	Belgium	1989–1992	Delors II
6	Christiane Scrivener	France	1992–1994	Delors II
7	Emma Bonino	Italy	1995–1999	Santer
8	David Byrne	Ireland	1999–2004	Prodi
9	Pavel Telička	Czech Republic	2004	Prodi (Parallel to Byrne)
10	Markos Kyprianou	Cyprus	2004–2010	Barroso I (Health only)
11	Androulla Vassiliou	Cyprus	2008–2010	Barroso I (Health only)
12	John Dalli	Malta	2010–16 October 2012	Barroso II
13	Maroš Šefčovič	Slovakia	2012	Barroso II (Acting)
14	Tonio Borg	Malta	2012–2014	Barroso II (Health only from 2013)
15	Neven Mimica	Croatia	2013–2014	Barroso II (Consumer protection only)
16	Vytenis Andriukaitis	Lithuania	2014–2019	Juncker
17	Stella Kyriakidou	Cyprus	2019–present	von der Leyen

References

^ Commissioner Kyprianou urges EU governments to use pictorial warnings on tobacco packets ec.europa.eu
^ Commission wants EU-wide smoking ban in public places Archived 30 August 2008 at the Wayback Machine euractiv.com 30 January 2007
^ Brussels to push for EU-wide organ donor card euobserver.com 20 May 2007