One Health in the EU: The Next Future?

The Article investigates how the One Health concept is used in the European Union and what functions are attributed to it in EU laws and policies. To this end we conduct a systematic analysis of EU laws and policy documents, with specific emphasis on the European Green Deal and its actions. The first section outlines the main conceptual features of the evolving One Health approach over time. The second section analyses how European laws and policies have considered One Health over time, show-ing its erratic use. The third section is dedicated to analysing how One Health is taken into account by the Green Deal’s actions. The conclusion recognises that the EU conceptualization and operationaliza-tion of One Health is far from being clear, coherent or concrete. However, we argue that a transition may be underway and One Health has the potential to become a new political and legal principle ca-pable of permeating future EU actions towards a new phase of policy integration and sustainability.