In the European Union (EU), about 1.7 million persons aged less than 75 died in 2016. Among them, around 1.2 million deaths could be considered as premature according to the recently developed Eurostat-OECD list of avoidable mortality. Out of those, 741 000 preventable deaths could have been avoided through effective public health and primary prevention interventions, and 422 000 treatable deaths through timely and effective health care interventions.