Petr Wagner is the new Counsellor at the Economic and Financial Section of the EU Delegation to the United States in Washington. Finance newsletter spoke to him about what he’ll be doing and what he thinks his biggest challenges will be.

What exactly will your role be?

The job covers financial services – so the portfolio of the DG for Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union. A large part of my job will be to liaise with the US regulatory agencies. I'll be responsible for providing headquarters in Brussels with insight from the US and, similarly, our American partners with insight from Brussels.

What do you think are the most important issues in the EU/US financial regulatory relationship? And what do you think the biggest challenges will be?

I think the single most important issue is ensuring greater cooperation at the earliest stage of the regulatory process. This cooperation must be solid and based on mutual trust and understanding. Money is global and what happens in one part of the world is quickly felt in another one. So regulatory action on both sides of the Atlantic needs to be consistent. Ultimately, EU and US policy makers have the same goals - to promote financial stability and economic growth. And they are aware that we cannot achieve this when working in isolation. In terms of specific policy areas, we need, for example, to work on the resolution of banks and central counterparties. And we should coordinate when looking at new policy challenges such as shadow banking and cyber security in the financial sector.

Tell us something about what you've done previously, either in the European Commission or elsewhere.

I joined the Commission in 2005 and started to work at the DG for Internal Market and Services, in the directorate for public procurement. To begin with, I dealt with infringement cases and after a while moved to the international unit, which was in charge of renegotiating the WTO Government Procurement Agreement. This was my first professional experience of dealing with international partners. After that, I moved to the "financial branch" of DG Internal Market and Services, where I was responsible for relations with the United States. There, I organized the EU - US Financial Markets Regulatory Dialogue and was part of the team negotiating the TTIP. This job somewhat naturally led me to apply for my current position at the EU Delegation in the US.

You must be looking forward to working in America – a new and very different environment. What do you think will be the best measure of your success there?

One of my colleagues told me once that at times we still get lost in translation when discussing with our American partners. It will be very exciting and rewarding for me to be able to make the EU position better understood and in turn help my colleagues in Brussels to also have a clearer understanding of how the US approaches the same issues differently and why.  So, as they would say in America: I am "totally" looking forward to it!