The European Food Safety Authority’s (EFSA) Executive Director Catherine Geslain-Lanéelle announced this week she was resigning to take up a public office in France from 1 September.
More on the announcement is in an EFSA press release.
Catherine was responsible
for developing EFSA from a fledgling organisation recently arrived in Parma to
the mature organisation that last year celebrated 10 years of achievement.
Catherine took over an
organisation that had built strong foundations on providing scientific opinions
from Panels and developing scientific approaches. She developed and strengthened
EFSA’s relationship with national authorities and the European institutions.
In dealing with the
challenges from rising expectations, she brought clarity and increased rigour
to EFSA’s independence policies and procedures.
The expansion of EFSA’s
internal scientific capacity continued and allowed increased support to EFSA’s
scientific outputs.
Beyond her achievements,
those of us who interact with EFSA will miss Catherine’s smile of recognition and
welcoming words as she bumped into you in the building, in the streets of Parma
or in an airport. So it just remains to say merci, au revoir and bonne chance!