The Finnish career diplomat, who took up the post in London, described his role over the coming years as a 'facilitator', testing what might fly on both sides without formally sitting at the negotiating table, though he will be 'very close to it'.
'Everyone tells me my job is explaining London to Brussels and Brussels to London,' Salovaara said. The UK, he added, remains 'the European Union's first and foremost partner' and when the two have reached agreements, it has always been to 'our mutual benefit'.
Salovaara, 58, was previously Finland's ambassador to the UN and its permanent secretary in the foreign ministry. This is his first appointment with the European Commission, but not his first posting in the UK: as a young diplomat in 1996 he handled European affairs in London at the dawn of the Cool Britannia era, just as Tony Blair was about to take power. He recalled the 1990s as 'such an optimistic time' when globalisation was expected to 'lift all boats' and Labour came 'very close' to joining the euro.
Prime Minister Andy Burnham is understood to have gone further than his predecessor Keir Starmer in stating that the current relationship with the EU is not working and that a full range of options, including rejoining, must be considered for Labour's next manifesto. Salovaara said the ball is in the UK's court: Brussels will wait for Britain to decide what it wants before engaging formally.