Antimicrobials can be considered as ‘societal’ drugs since any use of an antibiotic, whether in man or animals, has the potential to select for resistance to the antibiotic used. For this reason, much emphasis is now placed on the “One health” approach to combating antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Jordi Torren-Edo, Kari Grave and David Mackay from European Medicines Agency (EMA) describes, how the European Commission’s action plan against the rising threats from Antimicrobial Resistance aims to coordinate and strengthen all the activities intending to reduce the threat to human and animal health from the use of antimicrobials in human and veterinary medicine within the EU.