EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT: THE NEW FOREIGN

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 BRUSSELS 003320

SIPDIS

DEPT FOR EUR/ERA, EUR/RPM

E.O.: 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV PREL PINR EUN USEU BRUSSELS
SUBJECT: EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT: THE NEW FOREIGN
AFFAIRS COMMITTEE



1. (U) Summary: The new European Parliament (EP)
Foreign Affairs Committee will be the largest EP
committee, with 78 members. The Committee is
responsible for drafting reports and making
recommendations on Common Foreign and Security
Policy (CFSP) topics, European Security and Defense
Policy (ESDP),enlargement of the EU, international
agreements, and relations with other international
organizations. Although the EP does not enjoy much
decision-making power in these areas compared to
other EU policy areas, such as transport or the
environment, the Foreign Affairs Committee remains
one of the most prestigious of the EP's committees,
and routinely attracts the largest number of
applicants. Two newly created subcommittees -- one
on human rights, the other on security and defense -
- will assist the main committee. Elmar Brok, a
German MEP from the center-right EPP-ED, will remain
Committee chairman. End Summary.

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ROLE AND COMPETENCES
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2. (U) The EP Foreign Affairs Committee, with 78
members, will remain the largest EP committee.
According to the EP's rules of procedure, the
Committee is responsible for the following issues:
CFSP and ESDP, on which it will be assisted by a
newly created subcommittee for security and defense;
relations with the UN and other international
organizations; the strengthening of political
relations with third countries through cooperation
and assistance programs or international agreements
such as association and partnership agreements;
opening, monitoring, and concluding EU accession
negotiations; and questions relating to human
rights, the protection of minorities, and the
promotion of democratic values in third countries,
on which the Committee will be assisted by the new
subcommittee on human rights.


3. (U) The EP does not have much formal decision-
making power in most foreign policy areas,
especially defense and security matters; EU member
states, meeting as the Council, often ignore the
EP's opinion. However, over the years, the EP has
at times used its few available instruments -- such
as the requirement for EP assent to Association
Agreements with third countries and EP control over
the EU budget -- to exert some influence in this
area.

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THE MOST POPULAR COMMITTEE
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4. (U) Even with such limited legislative power, the
Foreign Affairs Committee has always been considered
the most prestigious committee in the EP, with the
largest number of applications for membership.
BACKGROUND: Once elected, MEPs rank their
preferences for committee and delegation
assignments. Not all MEPs, however, become members
of their "first choice" committee, as committee and
delegation memberships are assigned among the
political groups according to the size of the
groups. Ensuring balanced representation from
political groups and nationalities on all of the
various committees is a difficult exercise. Harsh
negotiating is usual inside each political group --
both between member-state delegations and between
individual MEPs -- for membership nominations and
for leadership positions (chairman, vice-chairman
and political group coordinator.) END BACKGROUND.

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WHO'S WHO IN THE NEW COMMITTEE
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5. (U) The Committee held its constitutive meeting
on July 22 in Strasbourg and elected its chairman
and vice-chairmen by acclamation. Since the
political group leaders negotiate committee
chairmanships in advance, the election is usually
only a procedural action with one candidate per
position to be filled. The committee leaders and
political group coordinators are (with the exception
of the Socialist coordinator, who has not yet been
appointed):

-- Elmar Brok (Germany, EPP-ED),Chairman: After
receiving a degree in law and politics, Brok worked
briefly as a journalist but quickly moved into
politics. An "old-timer" among MEPs despite being
only 58, Brok has been in office since 1979 and was
the Committee's chairman during the last
parliamentary term. He also was (and will almost
certainly remain) the EPP coordinator for
institutional issues -- he was an active participant
in the Convention on the Future of Europe and one of
the "EP envoys" to the Inter-Governmental Conference
that negotiated the EU Constitutional Treaty. His
flamboyant and direct style leaves no one
indifferent in the EP. Like most German Christian-
Democrat MEPs, Brok describes himself as an ally of
the U.S. -- despite frequent criticism of U.S.
"unilateralism" and his opposition to U.S. positions
on Guantanamo, the ICC, the Kyoto Protocol, and the
death penalty.

-- Geoffrey Van Orden (UK, EPP-ED),First Vice
Chairman: A retired Brigadier General, 59-year-old
Van Orden held senior positions at NATO and in the
European Commission before being elected to the EP
as a member of the British Conservative Party. He
was Vice-Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee
in the previous Parliament and is a specialist in
defense issues. Van Orden, who has worked closely
with the Mission, is among NATO's strongest
advocates in the EP.

-- Toomas-Hendrik Ilves (Estonia, PES),Second Vice
Chairman: Ilves, 49, grew up in the United States
and spent much of his adult life there. He studied
psychology at Columbia University and then later
headed Radio Free Europe's Estonian service from
Munich. He renounced his U.S. citizenship soon
after Estonia regained independence and became
Estonian Ambassador to the U.S. in 1993, followed by
accreditation to Canada as well in 1994. From 1999-
2002, he was Estonia's foreign minister, playing a
key role in negotiating Estonia's accession to the
EU. He became an EP observer for his country in

2003. Ilves declared in a recent interview that he
hopes to revise the EU's "naive" policy toward
Russia and also to focus on European security
policy, especially terrorism.

-- Baroness Emma Nicholson (UK, ALDE),Third Vice-
Chairman: A trained musician and computer designer,
Emma Nicholson, 63, was also long active in the Save
the Children fund. She was the Vice-Chairman of the
Conservative Party before quitting to join the
Liberal Democrats in 1995. She has been a Life Peer
and member of the British House of Lords since 1997.
A close contact of USEU, Nicholson was the EP
rapporteur on Iraq and voiced strong support for
U.S. military action. However, she introduced an
ongoing source of transatlantic friction when she
lionized the "Romanian adoption scandal" that led to
the moratorium on international adoption from
Romania.

-- Jose Ignacio Salafranca (Spain, EPP-ED),EPP-ED
coordinator: A professor of European law,
Salafranca was elected to the EP in 1994. He
retains his position as the Committee's EPP-ED
coordinator and has since 2001 also been the EPP-ED
spokesman in the NATO Parliamentary Assembly.
Salafranca, 49, is a specialist in Latin American
issues and, in addition to representing the EP at
the last two EU-Latin America Summits, he was
responsible for EP reports on EU-Latin America
relations, Association Agreements with Chile and
Mexico, and the Andean community. He proved a good
contact of the Mission during the last Parliamentary
term.

-- Armin Laschet (Germany, EPP-ED),EPP-ED
coordinator: A lawyer, journalist, and publisher,
Laschet launched his political career in Germany in
the nineties, becoming a member of the Bundestag in
1994 and being elected to the EP in 1999.
Particularly interested in the UN (he is a member of
the executive council of the German United Nations
Society),he was appointed in 2003 to draft the EP
report on EU-UN relations.

-- Annemie Neyts (Belgium, ALDE),ALDE coordinator:
A French teacher in Flanders, the 60-year-old Neyts
began her political career at a young age, rising
through the Flemish Liberal Party (VLD). She became
the party's chairman for the Brussels region in

1995. Belgium's Minister of Trade during the late-
2001 Belgian EU Presidency, she presided over the EU
Council during the Doha trade talks. She was an MEP
from 1994 to 1999, prior to her ministerial post.
Neyts recently attended the U.S. Democratic
Convention in Boston, invited by Madeleine Albright.


6. (U) In addition to these key MEPs, the
Committee's many high-profile members include former
Lithuanian President Vytautas Landsbergis (EPP-ED);
three former prime ministers -- Denmark's Poul Nyrup
Rasmussen (current leader of the European
Socialists),France's Michel Rocard (PES),and
Italy's Massimo D'Alema (PES); and four former
foreign ministers -- Finland's Paavo Vayrynen
(ALDE),the Czech Republic's Josef Zieleniec (EPP-
ED),Cyprus' Ioannis Kasoulides (EPP-ED),and
Luxembourg's Lydie Polfer (ALDE). Other prominent
figures include two former European Commissioners,
Italian Emma Bonino (ALDE) and Portuguese Joao de
Deus Pinheiro (EPP-ED); German Greens leader
Angelika Beer; and Philippe Morillon (France, EPP-
ED),former commander of UN forces in Bosnia.

SAMMIS