Petteri
VUORIMÄKI

Finland’s Ambassador for Arctic Affairs as from 1 September 2019. Finnish Senior Arctic Official in the Arctic Council. Until the end of 2022, he also held the post of Ambassador for Antarctic Affairs. Before his current post he served in diplomatic postings for Finland in Moscow, Pristina, Strasbourg and Brussels. Before his MFA career he worked for the International Organization for Migration in Geneva (Coordinator for Russia and the CIS Countries) and Helsinki and held various positions in the Finnish Labour Administration. During his tenure in Brussels, he worked in the Finnish Permanent Representation to the EU in charge of the COEST Working Party (Russia, CIS, Arctic and Northern Cooperation, European Neighborhood Policy, Black Sea cooperation), in the External Relations Directorate General of the European Commission (Unit for Relations with Russia) and in the European External Action Service, where he was 2011 appointed as the first permanent chairperson for the COEST and COSCE Working Parties and subsequently as from 2015 a Senior Russia Expert. In Brussels his primary fields of interest and responsibility were related to EU-Russia relations, Union’s Eastern Neighborhood and various regional cooperation structures in the North, including the Arctic cooperation. He was also selected as the Chair of the Vision Group for the Council of the Baltic Sea States which was a group of independent experts which submitted a report to the CBSS Ministerial meeting on the future of the CBSS and the Baltic Sea region cooperation.