Opening address by State Secretary Jukka Salovaara at Annual Meeting of Heads of Mission 2025

"We are living through an exceptionally powerful transformation on the international scene. In the current challenging operational environment, we need a strong Foreign Service to promote Finland’s interests."

Dear colleagues, Distinguished Heads of Mission,

You are warmly welcome to the 2025 Annual Meeting of the Heads of Mission. I am very pleased to see us together again. We now have the opportunity to look ahead into the coming year and discuss the global situation that is undergoing major changes.

We are going to hear a more detailed analysis of the international situation in the speeches of government ministers and the state leadership.

Once again, I would like to thank you for your excellent work and advocacy efforts. You are truly needed. Alongside all your other duties and influencing activities, reporting is of paramount importance. Heads of Mission bear a particular responsibility for it. It is essential that your insights are available to Finland’s foreign policy leadership in real time. Alertness is key.

The reform of the Foreign Service became well-established over the past year. As a result, we now have a more efficient and more streamlined leadership structure. Fragmented functions were brought together. The use of human resources is more flexible and applies a firmly prioritising approach. Directors General are now more closely involved at the core of the Ministry’s overall management. One of the visible changes is that our new Director of Human Resources was recruited because of her solid expertise from the business world.

It is obvious that any new system calls for practice and experience, but we have now found the right framework. The reform of the Foreign Service has been successful, and I wish to thank everyone for taking it forward together. The next step will be to establish procedures for assessing the human resources needs of missions in real time in order to ensure that personnel is available where needed the most.

The reform of our export promotion activities is also nearing completion. It will ensure that Finland has a more efficient and more impactful export promotion mechanism abroad as operations are brought under one roof. This is the right direction to take in our strongly geopoliticized operational environment where trade and politics go hand in hand. As country managers, you have a major task ahead in implementing this reform on the ground.

I wish to welcome among us the top experts who are transferring from Business Finland to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. You are appreciated and needed here.

Let us keep our focus on what is essential: Finland needs more exports to put its economy on a more solid footing.

Dear colleagues,

We all know that we are living through a very difficult economic situation which compels the Government to make savings. The Ministry for Foreign Affairs has made its choices, focussing the cuts on Helsinki with a view to keeping the missions abroad functional. In an unpredictable world it is important that Finland has a broad network of diplomatic missions.

This choice is reflected in staffing levels. During 2024 and 2025, the Foreign Ministry’s personnel in Finland has been reduced by seven per cent. Due to the austerity pressures in the coming years, we anticipate a reduction of some ten percent in personnel in order to be strong enough in the field.

Yet we must also face the fact that we cannot get through the latest round of savings without closing some of our offices abroad. We have tried to avoid this, firmly believing that we cannot talk about hearing the Global South if we simultaneously reduce our own presence in the world. We will nevertheless strive to find solutions to remain intensely involved in an increasingly diverse and less Europe-centred international order.

It is part of the daily work of the Government to see which functions should be carried out by the ministries and which tasks should be performed jointly at the Prime Minister’s Office. I personally do not think that who is providing everyday services for us is a critical issue for the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. What is essential is the central government’s capacity to function and its performance. Will the functional capacity be adequate to meet the demanding international needs of the Foreign Ministry’s operations?

The overall organisation of communications is currently under review. With the disruption of Europe’s security architecture, it is particularly important that the foreign policy voice of Finland is heard. As we have seen even in recent weeks, there is a specific need for this.

It is one thing to assure the best services and operational conditions in the very centre of Helsinki. It is, however, a more demanding task to organise various functions within an international network in which operational environments are particularly challenging, sometimes even hostile. The solutions concerning the Foreign Ministry must work in Moscow and in Beijing alike. It is not enough that they function well at Senate Square.

I believe that a pragmatic way of organising things would be for the Foreign Ministry to manage governmental functions beyond the country’s borders whenever Finland is involved in an international operational environment. We are now heading to this direction in the field of export promotion.

Distinguished Heads of Mission,

Many of you work in highly challenging operational environments. Some of you are posted in cities that are bombed regularly. You operate admirably under intense pressure. I am now thinking especially of Kyiv, Tehran, Tel Aviv, Ramallah, Baghdad, and Beirut. Finnish diplomats will not abandon their posts when pressure increases.

Yet it is a regrettable fact that we are not in the headlines because of successes achieved in Kyiv or Tehran, but because of problems encountered in Lisbon. Within a short period, we have twice been confronted with a situation in which the term of the Head of Mission has been suspended mid-term. The reason is not that there would be more problem situations than before, but the threshold for terminating a posting has become lower.

I cannot promise that there would never again be any problems, but let me assure that all problem situations will be addressed. From now on, we will tackle shortcomings more readily. This also reflects a broader societal change. It is a correct approach and a welcome development.

Together we can build trust in the system’s reliability. The staff must have effective means to bring issues to the leadership’s attention. If people feel that they first need to go public, we have failed. We need a system where problems are resolved efficiently, in consultation with all the parties involved, while respecting everyone’s legal protection and ensuring data protection.

It is your duty as Heads of Mission to make sure that Finland’s missions are well-functioning and well-managed. At the same time, it is important to provide stronger support for you. We must also be present on-site early enough to prevent problems from escalating. While much is expected of the Heads of Mission, we must also support you better. So please tell us how we, based in Helsinki, could lend you support in your leadership duties.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

We are living through an exceptionally powerful transformation on the international scene. Europe's security is being built in Ukraine. Europe is seeking a stronger voice and an effective capacity to function. International standards are being challenged. Global power centres are shifting. The challenges of sustainable development and climate change have not disappeared either. In the current challenging operational environment, we need a strong Foreign Service to promote Finland’s interests.

One way to shoulder international responsibility is through the UN Security Council, on which Finland is currently seeking a non-permanent seat for the 2029–2030 term. This is a shared project for all of us.

Distinguished colleagues,

It is our tradition to remember deceased ambassadors and honour their life’s work. During the past year, we have lost: Johannes Bäckström, Jaakko Laajava, Osmo Lares, Markus Lyra and Rauno Viemerö.

Let us rise to honour their memory with a moment of silence.

Thank you very much.