Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
04BRUSSELS3230
2004-07-30 09:05:00
UNCLASSIFIED//FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY
Embassy Brussels
Cable title:  

JOSEP BORRELL ELECTED EP PRESIDENT

Tags:  PGOV PREL PINR EUN USEU BRUSSELS 
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UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 BRUSSELS 003230 

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SENSITIVE
DEPT FOR EUR/ERA, EUR/RPM

E.O.: 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV PREL PINR EUN USEU BRUSSELS
SUBJECT: JOSEP BORRELL ELECTED EP PRESIDENT


UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 BRUSSELS 003230

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE
DEPT FOR EUR/ERA, EUR/RPM

E.O.: 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV PREL PINR EUN USEU BRUSSELS
SUBJECT: JOSEP BORRELL ELECTED EP PRESIDENT



1. (U) Summary: The European Parliament (EP) on
July 20 elected as its new president Spanish
Socialist Josep Borrell. Although a former
Fullbright scholar and active supporter of the
Fullbright program, Borrell has been one of the
Spanish Socialist party's most outspoken critics of
U.S. policy, particularly on Iraq. End Summary.

JOSEP BORRELL
--------------


2. (U) On July 20, at the first plenary session
after the June European elections, MEPs elected
Josep Borrell the new EP President. Borrell, a 57
year-old Spanish Catalan, is a newly elected
Socialist MEP with little prior experience in
international politics. He won the EP presidency
with 388 votes, against 208 votes for Polish liberal
Bronislaw Geremek (candidate of the Liberal and
Democrats' ALDE group and the Greens) and 51 votes
for French communist Francis Wurtz (candidate of the
far-left GUE-NGL group.)


3. (SBU) Borrell was born in 1947 in the Pyrenees
mountains, the son of a baker. He holds a degree in
Aeronautic Engineering and a Doctorate in Economic
Sciences. According to biographical notes from the
U.S. Embassy in Madrid, from 1973 to 1975 he studied
at Stanford under a Fulbright grant, obtaining a
Master's in Applied Mathematics-Econometrics. He
also received a Master's in Energy Economics from
the French Petroleum Institute in Paris. At around
this time, he also went to Israel, attracted by the
"kibbutz" experience; he met his wife, Carolina
Mayeur, during his stay. The couple, who separated
in the mid-1990s, has two children.


4. (U) Borrell began his political career in 1979
when he was elected to Madrid's regional government
and given responsibilities in the area of fiscal
policy. In 1982, he was elected General Secretary
of Budget and Public Spending within Spain's Finance
Ministry. Two years later, he was appointed State
Secretary of Finances. In 1991, Borrell was

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appointed Minister of Construction, Transport, and
Environment, a position he held until 1996. Borrell
was tainted late in the game by the scandal that had
chased former President and Socialist party leader
Felipe Gonzalez from office. Borrell's political

skills won over his party's rank and file, however,
and he was elected Chairman of the Mixed Commission
of Congress-Senate for the EU. He was chosen in
2002 to represent the Spanish Parliament at the
Convention that drafted the EU Constitution.

A CONTESTED POLITICAL DEAL
--------------


6. (U) Borrell's EP Presidency election was secured
by a deal between the two largest EP political
groups, the Christian Democrats (EPP-ED) and the
Socialists (PES). Under their agreement, Borrell
should step down halfway through the five-year
legislature to make way for an EPP-ED president,
expected to be the group leader, Hans-Gert
Poettering. This "technical deal" to share the
presidency was strongly criticized by the ALDE and
Green party but also by the press and even by some
Socialist and EPP-ED MEPs who voted for Geremek
against their party line. Borrell has been
portrayed in the press as a bureaucratic and weak
candidate compared to charismatic and highly
symbolic Bronislaw Geremek, a former leader of
Solidarnosc trade union in Poland and former Polish
Foreign Minister. However, such an arrangement to
share the presidency is not new: Irish Liberal Pat
Cox became president in 2002 thanks to a similar
deal between his party and the EPP-ED in 1999.

BORRELL AND THE UNITED STATES
--------------


7. (SBU) As the leader of the Spanish socialist
delegation in the EP and as a candidate to the EP
presidency, Borrell has been extremely critical of
U.S. policy in Iraq and was a leading advocate of
withdrawing Spanish troops. During a debate with
Geremek, he stressed his strong opposition to the
war in Iraq as a main argument in his favor and
attacked Geremek for having supported U.S. action.
In an interview published on July 29 in the Wall
Street Journal, Borrell called for Europe to
challenge American dominance, stressing that "Europe
can not just be an intellectual reserve for the
American empire." He also asserted that "we need to
find a middle ground between force without law and
law without force, and a pre-emptive war like Iraq
is force without law." During his inaugural speech,
he pointed to the Middle East and the Mediterranean
basin as top foreign affairs priorities for the EU
but did not mention transatlantic relations.


8. (SBU) However, on a more positive note, Embassy
Madrid describes Borrell as a strong supporter of
the Fulbright program, maintaining relations with
the Fulbright Commission since his scholarship days.
In 1994, as Transport and Environment Minister,
Borrell helped establish a Fulbright program for
Ministry employees. A total of 13 grantees
participated in the program from 1995-1997.
According to Embassy Madrid, Borrell in 1993
presented the Crown Prince with an honorary award
during the Commission's 35th anniversary
celebrations. In his remarks, Borrell lauded U.S.-
Spanish relations, commented favorably on his
experience with American liberty and democracy as a
Fulbrighter, and urged both governments to embrace
the Fulbright program as a model of academic
excellence and cross-cultural understanding.

(DRAFTED:POL:MVANAVERBEKE)

SAMMIS