Olivér Várhelyi

Responsibilities

As Commissioner for Health and Animal Welfare, Olivér Várhelyi’s task is to complete the European Health Union. He will do this by diversifying supply chains, improving access to the most advanced treatments, boosting the competitiveness, resilience and security of health systems and working on strategic inventories. 

He is also tasked with building on the One Health approach, which recognises the connection between people, animals, plants and their shared environment.

He is responsible for:

• proposing a Critical Medicines Act to address the severe shortages of medicines and medical devices and to reduce dependencies
• leading the efforts to conclude work on the reform of EU pharmaceutical legislation
• leading the work on a new European Biotech Act to boost innovation in health technology assessment, clinical trials and more
• ensuring the availability and competitiveness of medical devices           
• stepping up the Commission’s work on preventive health, including by ensuring the implementation of the European Beating Cancer Plan and by evaluating and revising tobacco legislation
• continuing the work to combat anti-microbial resistance (AMR) and working with Member States to reach the 2030 targets
• preparing a European action plan on the cybersecurity of hospitals and healthcare providers 
• completing the European Health Data Space and making proposals to scale up genome sequencing capacities
• leading an EU-wide inquiry on the broader impacts of social media on wellbeing
• modernising the rules on animal welfare, including on the import of exotic animals
• proposing actions to prevent and reduce food waste
• enforcing food safety standards, including through increased controls on imported products

Read more about the EU’s public health and animal welfare policies.

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Transparency

Meetings and missions

As part of the Commission's commitment to transparency, Commissioners and their Cabinet members publish information on and minutes of all meetings they hold with interest representatives. Every two months, they also publish an overview of mission expenses.

• Meetings with Commissioner Várhelyi
• Meetings with Commissioner Várhelyi's Cabinet members
• Missions of Commissioner Várhelyi

European Parliament hearings

Read Commissioner Várhelyi's answers to the first and second European Parliament questionnaire. 

Declaration of interests

In line with the Commission's Code of Conduct for Members of the Commission, each Member of the Commission publishes a declaration of interests. The declarations of the Commissioners-designate can be found on the European Parliament’s website, where they were published before the confirmation hearings of the Commissioners.

The declarations of interests of the new Members of the Commission will be updated and published here at the beginning of 2025 in line with Article 3 of the Code of Conduct for the Members of the European Commission. Machine-readable versions of all declarations will also be made available in line with the requirements of the Code of Conduct. The declarations of interests follow the requirements set out in Article 3 and Annex 1 of the Code of Conduct for Commissioners.