Xavier Prats Monné

Xavier Prats Monné is the Director-General for Health and Food Safety of the European Commission (EC) since September 2015. He is responsible for EU policies and programmes in health and food safety, including the promotion of public health, the assessment of national healthcare systems' performance, pharmaceutical legislation, animal health and welfare, as well as the strengthening of Europe's capacity to deal with crisis situations in human health and the food sector.

Between 2011 and 2015, first as Deputy and then as Director-General for education and culture, he was responsible for EU policies and programmes on education and culture, including Erasmus+, Marie Sklodowska Curie and Creative Europe. He represented the EC on the Governing Board of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT).

From 2007 to 2010, he was the Director for employment policy, and one of the five founding members of the Impact Assessment Board, reporting to the President of the European Commission. He previously served as Deputy Head of Cabinet of the EC Vice-President for international relations; as Advisor of the EC Commissioner for Regional policy; and as Assistant to the Spokesman of President Jacques Delors.

He holds degrees in Social Anthropology from the Universidad Complutense (Madrid, Spain); in Development Cooperation from the International Centre for Advanced Mediterranean Agronomic Studies (CIHEAM; Paris, France); and in European Studies from the College of Europe (Bruges, Belgium), where he graduated first of the Class of 1981-82 and served as assistant professor. He completed his primary and secondary education (Maturità Scientifica) at the Istituto Massimo of Rome, Italy. He is from Spain, fluent in Spanish, English, French, Italian and Catalan.