EU COUNCIL ON NATO-EU RELATIONS

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 BRUSSELS 002068

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E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/14/2014
TAGS: PREL MOPS MARR BK EUN NATO USEU BRUSSELS
SUBJECT: EU COUNCIL ON NATO-EU RELATIONS


Classified By: USEU External Affairs Officer Andrew Erickson
for reasons 1.5 (b) and (d).

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Summary
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1. (C) EUR/RPM Director Dan Russell visited Brussels May 6-7
to meet with EU Council Secretariat officials responsible for
EU European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP) formulation.
The primary topic of discussion was the transition in Bosnia
from SFOR to a EU mission. In all of his meetings, Russell
drew upon the interagency-cleared guidance prepared for the
May 5 PCG-PMG meeting on Bosnia. Russell met with Council
deputy director general for ESDP Pieter Feith and exchanged
views on NATO-EU relations. Council Secretariat planner
Matthew Reece briefed Russell on the EU General Concept, and
subsequently, Russell reviewed U.S. thinking on Bosnia with
Council Defense Aspects Director Claude France Arnould. EU
officials expressed confidence that things are generally "on
track" for Bosnia, although the Council continues to have
concerns about the Dayton authorities, strategic reserve
arrangements, and the delineation of tasks, primarily
monitoring. Finally, Russell met with EU Civilian Crisis
Management Director Michael Matthiessen, and discussed the
EU's military liaison with SHAPE with Major General
Jean-Pierre Herreweghe, EU Military Chief of Staff.
Herreweghe told Russell that the EUMS was staffing up its
SHAPE liaison office, and would have approximately 10
officers in place at SHAPE by early June. These officers
would also serve liaison roles at AFSOUTH and Sarajevo, as
required. End summary.

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Council Secretariat
- Feith and Arnould
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2. (C) EUR/RPM Russell met May 6th with the Council
Secretariat Deputy Director General for ESDP, Peiter Feith.

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Feith reviewed the current EU state of play on Bosnia with
Russell, underscoring his view that things were going well.
There continued to be some unease in the EU Political and
Security Committee (PSC) about NATO's lead role in detaining
PIFWCs; Feith suggested that PSC ambassadors be briefed
(ideally during their next trip to SHAPE) in order to better
understand the way that PIFWCs are currently addressed in
Bosnia. Russell took Feith's suggestion under advisement,
and agreed to follow up with SHAPE to see if something could
be done to put the PSC in the comfort zone on this issue.
One key point to emphasize, said Russell, was that NATO is
simply seeking to protect an on-going program, not carve out
something from EU control. Feith responded that there was a
real need to educate the PSC on this point. On NATO's
counterterrorism role, Feith expressed satisfaction with
Russell's explanation of the U.S. position.


3. (C) Next Russell met with Council Secretariat Defense
Aspects Director Claude France Arnould, who reviewed EU
concerns about control of strategic reserves in the event of
a major conflagration in Bosnia following an EU takeover.
Arnould's concerns seemed to be based upon a
military-theological fixation with worst-case scenarios.
Russell noted that outstanding reserve questions needed to be
addressed and suggested that the U.S. was taking a pragmatic
approach to planning. In general, he suggested that there
was a need to establish a framework and then let military
commanders work out the best approach to practical problems
at the military-to-military level in the field. Politics
simply complicated the pragmatic solutions required for a
successful transition in Bosnia. On the Dayton authorities,
Arnould suggested that the EU might require a new SOFA to
meet its legal needs. Russell, noting that neither he nor
Arnould were lawyers, stated the SOFA embedded in Dayton
offered the best terms and the U.S. opposed reopening Dayton.
Arnould agreed that the embedded SOFA offered the right
terms, but continued to insist that the EU may need a new
SOFA.

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Bosnia General Concept
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4. (C) Matthew Reece, Defense Aspects Planner, briefed
Russell on the EU's General Concept for Bosnia, recently
endorsed by the EU Council. Reece was principally
responsible for drafting the general concept. In particular,
Reece underscored three concerns for the EU as it moved
towards a possible operation in Bosnia:
-- NATO's responsibility for PIFWCs;
-- the significance of NATO's retention of a role in the war
on terror; and,
-- the necessity to go to the NAC for a decision to mobilize
strategic reserves for an EU-led Bosnia Operation under
Berlin Plus.


5. (C) Russell pushed back hard on all three points. It was
a misunderstanding of NATO's position to say that its
continued PIFWCs role was undercutting the EU; it was merely
preserving the current approach to the problem. Regarding
counter terrorism, NATO did have a vital role to play, which
did not threaten the EU. Finally, reserve issues obviously
remained to be worked out, but the EU needed to understand
that a decision to draw on NATO strategic reserves --
following a process that would have already entailed bringing
considerable operational reserves into play -- would
absolutely require a NATO decision. NATO, of course, had the
final voice in the dispensation of its own resources. Reece
also took the opportunity to discuss the Dayton authorities
and the delineation of tasks. In response to Russell's point
that both EUFOR and the post-SFOR NATO force would require
full Dayton authorities, Reece expressed concern that the EU
should have the lead on monitoring. Most of his concerns on
Dayton focused on making clear EUFOR's lead role in Bosnia.


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EUMS Liaison at SHAPE
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6. (C) On May 7, Russell met with Major General Jean-Pierre
Herreweghe, EU Military Staff (EUMS) Chief of Staff (COS).
Herreweghe expressed confidence that planning for Bosnia was
proceeding in good order, although he was unwilling to
express full confidence that the EU force generation process
would be successful. Solana's plan was to hold an "informal"
force generation conference first to try to get an idea of
the forces that might be available, and the shortfalls
needing to be addressed. After Istanbul -- and a formal NATO
decision -- a formal process would begin, leading first to a
CONOPS that could then lead to force generation.


7. (C) Herreweghe told Russell that the EUMS currently had
three officers serving in the liaison cell at SHAPE; these
officers were holdovers from the EU's "Operation Concordia".
Herreweghe said that he is now sending five more officers to
SHAPE, and said that these officers would be in place in the
coming weeks. His goal by early June, he told Russell, would
be to have 10 officers staffing the SHAPE liaison cell full
time. On the question of seconding EUMS officers to AFSOUTH
and Sarajevo, he said that this would be inappropriate, given
the fact that SHAPE would be the EU's OHQ for the Bosnia
Operation. For the EUMS to send liaison officers to AFSOUTH
and Sarajevo would be to second-guess the OHQ at SHAPE, he
said. For this reason, it was the EUMS liaison office at
SHAPE that would determine coverage of AFSOUTH Naples and
Sarajevo, and the officers would be rotated from the EUMS
liaison cell at SHAPE for these jobs.


8. (C) Russell noted that another key issue was NATO and
U.S. facilities in Bosnia, and the need for the EU to make a
determination about what it would need. Herreweghe responded
that he was going to see EUCOM General Wald on Monday May 10
at Wald's request in Stuttgart; he expected that EUCOM's need
for more rapid EU planning on what facilities it would take
over from NATO might be on Wald's agenda. Herreweghe
reiterated the General Concept's position that EUFOR planned
to initially deploy to SFOR's existing headquarters.

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Civilian Crisis Management
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9. (C) Finally, Russell reviewed the EU's civilian crisis
management with Michael Matthiessen, director of the civilian
crisis management cell of the EU. Matthiessen reviewed the
EU's police headline goal, of 5,000 police officers of whom
up to 1,400 can be deployed in under 30 days. Matthiessen
underscored that the focus of the EU's police missions was
non-executive policing; in other words, enhancing the
capacities of national/local police forces to improve their
own policing. Currently the EU was fielding police missions
in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia, and was deploying to the
Congo in a follow-on mission to EU autonomous ESDP operation
"Artemis". Regarding the police/gendarmie elements available
to the EU's possible military operation in Bosnia,
Matthiessen noted that such forces (called "IPU"s -- in EU
parlance, for "integrated police units", the equivalent of
NATO "MSU"s or "multinational specialized units") were
integrated with the military; this integration was their
great advantage in post-crisis deployment.


10. (C) Responding to a question from Russell on the EU's
police role in Afghanistan, Matthiessen noted that there had
been considerable German opposition to an EU police role in
Afghanistan for some time. It was SRSG Francesco Vendrell's
call for an EU police advisor that had weakened German
resistance to the idea of an EU role in this sector. The
Germans were now considering how to develop an EU presence in
Afghan policing, perhaps with Germany as lead nation. The
Italians, Matthiessen reported without offering specifics,
were interested in "a more ambitious approach".
Comment

11. (C) The consistent message from the EU Council
Secretariat officials on Bosnia was that things are on the

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right track, although some concerns remain, notably on
reserves and the Dayton authorities. Herreweghe's report on
progress towards EUMS liaison at SHAPE, if confirmed by
events, is good news, and shows that the EU is beginning to
get things moving in the right direction.

Foster