U.S.-EU DISCUSS RUSSIA, UKRAINE, MOLDOVA, BELARUS

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 BRUSSELS 001162

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E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/19/2014
TAGS: PREL PGOV PHUM UP BO MD EUN RU USEU BRUSSELS
SUBJECT: U.S.-EU DISCUSS RUSSIA, UKRAINE, MOLDOVA, BELARUS

REF: A. A) MINSK 352

B. B) STATE 49374

C. C) STATE 48021

D. D) BRUSSELS 796

Classified By: USEU POLOFF TODD HUIZINGA, FOR REASONS 1.4 (B) AND (D)


1. (C) SUMMARY: At U.S.-EU COEST consultations on March 16,
EUR DAS Steven Pifer and EU interlocutors agreed that Russian
progress on democracy and human rights and cooperation with
the U.S. and EU in the former Soviet space were central to
building a better strategic relationship with Russia. EU
participants stressed that Russia must agree to extend the
EU-Russia Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA),which
frames EU-Russia relations, to the 10 incoming EU member
states without preconditions. On Ukraine, all agreed that
strong U.S. and EU messages on democratization were key,
especially in the run-up to the October elections.
Discussion of Moldova centered on (1) reenergizing the
process of resolving the break between Moldova and
Transniestria, and (2) pressing the Russians to fulfill their
OSCE "Istanbul commitments" to withdraw military materiel
from Moldova. Pifer and EU counterparts also discussed their
upcoming March 19 joint visit to Minsk to push Belarus for
specific steps toward democracy and respect for human rights.
We believe this U.S.-EU joint visit will strongly signal to
Belarus the need for democratic change. END SUMMARY.

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EU-RUSSIA RELATIONS BASED ON SHARED VALUES?
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2. (C) Irish EU Presidency COEST head Barbara Jones said the
recent EU reassessment of EU-Russia relations had been
salutary (ref D). The principal conclusion had been that the
relationship has to be based on shared values of democracy,
respect for human rights, and rule of law. Also, the EU had
realized that a lack of coherence in the EU approach to
Russia had compounded the problems in the relationship.
Thus, the EU had agreed that a key issues/objectives paper
would be prepared before each EU-Russia summit to focus
discussions. In mandating this paper, the EU member states
had given the EU presidency a clear signal to work closely
with the Commission on Russia policy.

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U.S., EU SHARE CONCERNS ON RUSSIA
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3. (C) Pifer said the U.S. had undergone a process of
reassessment or recalibration of U.S.-Russian relations prior
to the Secretary's visit to Moscow in January. Key concerns
were the same as the EU's: democracy issues, the Yukos
affair, the Duma elections, and Russia's actions in the
former Soviet space. Pifer agreed that an apparently
widening gap in democratic values was complicating the
building of a strategic partnership with Russia.

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RUSSIA AND ENLARGED EU: BUMPY ROAD
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4. (C) Gerhard Lohan, Head of the
Russia/Ukraine/Moldova/Belarus Unit of the European
Commission Directorate-General for External Relations, raised
the EU-Russia Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA),
the basic framework for EU-Russia relations. He said it was
critical that Russia extend the PCA without preconditions to
the ten new EU member states by the time they accede to the
EU on May 1. Anything else, he said, would be a "serious
violation" of the PCA as such. He said Russia had given the
EU a list of 14 issues that Russia wanted to see resolved
before the May 1 enlargement. Lohan said the EU was
"addressing" those issues, and wanted to "double-track" the
process: Russia would extend the PCA now, and the EU would
agree to work with Russia on resolving the 14 issues. Lohan
lamented that the Russians, however, wanted to put the
question on hold until the EU-Russia Ministerial, which would
be very late (the Ministerial, originally scheduled for March
11, was postponed because of Putin's cabinet reshuffle; now
the EU is shooting for a date in mid- to late April). At an
EU-Russia Political Directors' meeting on March 22, the EU
plans to press for a Russian statement that it will extend
the PCA by May 1, according to Lohan.


5. (C) Pifer asked how many of the 14 issues were serious
Russian concerns. Lohan replied that close to ten of them,
mostly economic issues and questions related to visas and
movement of people (especially related to Kaliningrad),were
legitimate. He said the Russians had also raised concerns
about treatment of Russian minorities in the Baltic states,
and had even thrown in "noisy aircraft transition standards"
for good measure.

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EU UNCHR 60 CHECHNYA RESOLUTION
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6. (C) Jones reported that, since Russia had rejected the EU
proposal to have a Chairman's statement on Chechnya at the
upcoming UN Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) in Geneva, the
EU was now about to circulate a draft UNCHR resolution. She
said the EU was counting on U.S. support (she made this point
three times),and would share the draft with the U.S. as soon
as the EU had reached internal agreement on the language.
Pifer replied that the USG was engaged in interagency
discussions on how to handle Chechnya at the UNCHR, and would
inform the EU of the outcome of those deliberations.

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CHECHNYA EU SECURITY PROBLEM
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7. (C) Pifer said his impression was that Russia's focus in
Chechnya was "normalization" -- but it was hard to see any
Russian plans on how to move forward in Chechnya other than
simply asserting that the situation was normalizing. Pifer
pointed out the difficulty of finding leverage on Chechnya
other than moral suasion and public criticism, neither of
which had moved Putin in the past. Jones said that, with the
Chechen terrorist trend toward suicide bombing and the latest
UN High Commissioner for Refugees report showing Russia as
the highest growth source of refugees to the EU, Chechnya was
a looming human rights and security problem for the EU -- the
empty talk about normalization could not be allowed to
continue.

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RUSSIA AND FORMER SOVIET SPACE
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8. (C) The EU participants stressed Russian reluctance to
talk with the EU about Moldova, Georgia, Belarus and other
countries in the former Soviet space. Pifer said the U.S.
was emphasizing to the Russians that the USG's having
interests in the former Soviet space should not translate
into a zero-sum game between the U.S. and Russia. The
Secretary had focused during his Moscow visit on U.S.-Russia

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cooperation in Georgia, and Putin had explicitly affirmed
Georgia's right to decide about the presence of foreign
troops on its territory. Of course, Pifer added, whether
Putin's affirmation would be reflected in upcoming base
negotiations with the Georgians remained to be seen.

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UKRAINE: OCTOBER ELECTIONS WATERSHED
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9. (C) Pifer and Jones agreed that the October presidential
election would be a watershed for Ukraine -- a free and fair
election would be a huge step toward consolidation of
democracy, and the opposite would be a huge setback. Pifer
and Jones also underscored the multiplier effect of strong,
coordinated U.S. and EU messages on democracy. Pifer noted
that Deputy Secretary Armitage would visit Kiev on March
24-25 and would carry a strong message on democracy. Peter
McIvor of the Irish MFA said the EU was working on a
declaration that would focus on the broad message of
democratic standards, to be issued soon. The Irish were
considering the merits of a public calling to account of the
Kiev government and sought U.S. views. Pifer replied that
the real question was to find incentives for President Kuchma
on democracy issues. One possible incentive was to condition
an invitation to the June NATO summit in Istanbul on progress
toward respecting the opposition and toward a free and fair
election in October. Also, one could couch the message to
Kuchma in terms of his legacy -- he could claim a good record
on the economy and on Ukraine's moving closer to Europe; his
legacy on democracy could either underpin or undermine his
record on those other points. EU participants agreed that
Kuchma wants to move on (as opposed to running for a third
term) but has an interest in endorsing a successor and
arranging for a safe and secure retirement.

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EU ACTION PLAN FOR UKRAINE
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10. (C) Lohan discussed the Commission's draft action plan
for Ukraine. Kiev is buying into the plan for the short
term, but Ukraine's real focus is moving on within a few
years to an association agreement with the
medium-to-long-term perspective of EU membership. The
Commission is trying to steer Ukraine toward thinking in
terms of the European Neighborhood policy and away from the
perspective of EU membership. EU resources would be tight
through 2006. For the 2007-2013 financial framework, the
Commission hoped to establish a new instrument for
Neighborhood technical assistance. In May, Enlargemenet
Commissioner Guenter Verheugen will report on the Action
Plan's status. On upcoming high-level meetings with Ukraine,
McIvor was adamant that the cancellation of the March 30
EU-Ukraine Ministerial had been due solely to an unavoidable
conflict that arose in Irish FM Cowen's schedule. The
EU-Ukraine summit (under the Dutch EU presidency) is
scheduled for July 8 at The Hague.


11. (C) EU Council Ukraine/Moldova/Belarus Deskoff Carl
Hartzell reported that, although the Commission has the lead
on Ukraine in EU institutional terms, EU HighRep Javier
Solana has taken a keen interest in Ukraine. Solana believes
that Ukraine can be a test case for the EU's Neighborhood
Policy. Jones noted that Ukraine is vulnerable to Russian
energy pressure. Pifer agreed that Russia bears close
watching, but he added that it may be incorrect to attribute
the activities of Russian companies in Ukraine to official
Russian policy rather than simply to Russian companies'
acting in what they perceive to be their self interest.

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MOLDOVA: TRANSNIESTRIA, ISTANBUL COMMITMENTS
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12. (C) Pifer told the EU that Deputy Secretary Armitage
expected to make a five-hour stopover in connection with his
March 24-25 visit to Ukraine. This would be the most senior
U.S. visit in about a decade. The U.S. continued to push for
Russia's fulfillment of its Istanbul commitments, but there
had been no removal of Russian ammunition from Moldova in at
least three months. On a solution to the breakaway region of
Transnistria, Pifer said that Russia needed to get over the
failure of the Kozak Plan and reengage within the OSCE
mediation effort. Pifer pushed the idea of a meeting of the
U.S., EU, OSCE, Russia and Ukraine to examine how to move
forward. Lohan reported on informal trilateral talks
(Moldova, Ukraine, Commission) on border management. He said
the parties had agreed to set up five joint border posts
between Moldova and Ukraine, but not on the
Ukrainian-Transnistrian border. Commission technical
assistance was slotted to rise, and the EU was prepared to
shift from loans to grants contingent on IMF conditionality.

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BELARUS: MARCH 19 JOINT U.S.-EU VISIT
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13. (C) Pifer and EU counterparts used the Belarus discussion
to coordinate strategy for their upcoming March 19 joint
visit to Minsk to push Belarus for specific steps toward
democracy and respect for human rights. This visit will be a
follow-up to the joint U.S.-EU delivery of a demarche to
Belarus on March 15 linking Belarus' relations with both the
U.S. and the EU to specific progress on democracy and respect
for human rights (refs A-C). Pifer said a further signal to
Belarus on U.S. resolve would be that the U.S. Ambassador in
Minsk, George Krol, and Pifer would depart Minsk together for
Moscow to talk with the Russians about the situation in
Belarus, in an effort to see if Moscow was prepared to press
President Lukashenko on democracy questions (though
expectations were modest).

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COMMENT: COORDINATION WITH EU KEY
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14. (C) U.S. and EU views on all four of the countries
discussed at this COEST remain very close. U.S.-EU policy
coordination in the region will remain an important part of
the USG approach, especially after the May 1 enlargement
brings the EU to the COEST countries' borders. The March 19
joint visit of the U.S.-EU COEST Troika principals to Minsk
will strongly signal to Belarus U.S. and Europe's common
conviction of the need for democratic change. END COMMENT.



15. (U) This message has been cleared by EUR DAS Pifer.

FOSTER