U.S.-EU DISCUSSIONS ON CRISES, FAILING STATES

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 BRUSSELS 004438 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/15/2014 TAGS: PGOV PREL EAID EUN USEU BRUSSELS SUBJECT: U.S.-EU DISCUSSIONS ON CRISES, FAILING STATES REF: A. LONDON 7312 ¶B. BRUSSELS 4107 ¶C. BRUSSELS 3497 ¶D. BRUSSELS 0014 Classified By: USEU POLOFF TODD HUIZINGA, FOR REASONS 1.4 (B) AND (D) SUMMARY -------------- ¶1. (C) On October 5 Ambassador Carlos Pascual, Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization (S/CRS),met with EU officials and laid the ground work for closer cooperation with the EU in dealing with crises and failing states. Agreeing that U.S. and EU priorities fit well in this area, EU contacts expressed a desire to work together but cautioned that the EU faced institutional and resource constraints. Commission interlocutors pointed to a recently proposed streamlining of EC foreign assistance, which, if approved for 2007, would include a "stability instrument" of 500-600 million Euros to tackle crises in third countries. EU Council officials summarized EU crisis-management operations and aspirations, and said a civilian/military planning cell -- which might be a good partner for S/CRS -- would be set up by end of year. EU Council Director for Policy and Planning Christoph Heusgen suggested that S/CRS work together with his office to develop a U.S.-EU dialogue on &early warning8 assessments of countries at risk. END SUMMARY. U.S., EU ON SIMILAR TRACKS BUT EU HAMPERED -------------- ¶2. (C) EU Council Secretariat Director-General Robert Cooper (see ref C) said U.S. plans were "highly relevant to what the EU wants to do but now does rather badly;" if the constitutional treaty is ratified, he said, an EU Foreign Minister and EU Diplomatic Service could help bring together "significant political, military and foreign-aid clout" )- coordination that the EU currently lacks. Cooper said that, at present, the Council Secretariat was working on crisis management, with a military staff of about 150 and a police unit of about a dozen police officers, but without an institutional framework that encompassed both the political authority of the member states and the Commission's funds. Until these elements existed under a single framework, the EU would continue to "learn crisis management by doing," but would not be able to develop an S/CRS equivalent. ¶3. (C) Other interlocutors commented on the EU institutional framework as well. Marc van Bellinghen, Deputy Director of the European Commission Office of Conflict Prevention and Crisis Management (Directorate-General for External Relations),specified the constraints the EU Council Secretariat was subject to when trying to act in a crisis SIPDIS situation: Council action requires unanimous agreement of the 25 member states, thus delaying the EU response to crisis situations; also, the Council Secretariat has virtually no budget (CFSP budget is 50 million Euro/year) and very little manpower for taking action outside of Brussels. Council interlocutors, on the other hand, outlined for us the constraints under which the Commission must work: while the Commission has money for crisis management, it does not have the political backing; whereas Council crisis-management operations are usually carried out by people seconded from the member states under the political control of the member-state officials on the EU Political and Security Committee (PSC),the Commission often outsources its on-the-ground work to experts without an official connection to -- and without the political backing of -- member-state governments. COMMISSION MAY INAUGURATE "STABILITY INSTRUMENT" -------------- --- ¶4. (C) Van Bellinghen acknowledged the Commission's need to "adapt its foreign-aid instruments" so that the EC could "respond to crises in real time." He said that that was a principal purpose of the proposed streamlining of the EC foreign-aid system that the Commission had proposed in a White Paper published on September 29 ("On the Instruments for External Assistance under the Future Financial Perspective 2007-2013"). The proposal includes a "stability instrument" of about 500-600 million euros per year to tackle crises and instability in third countries. Commission Deputy Director-General for External Relations Michael Leigh affirmed that such a stability mechanism would give the EC more resources and greater flexibility in dealing with crises quickly. For the present, until Council and Commission authorities would be brought together under the new constitution in 2007, Leigh noted that RELEX focuses more on medium-term issues, while crises are more likely to be managed by the Council. He said he expected the Commission proposal to get the necessary approval of the European Parliament and member states, and to be up and running by ¶2007. Leigh added, though, that the amount of money that would actually be made available for a stability mechanism could not yet be predicted. (NOTE: Van Bellinghen named the 500-600m euro figure, but that does not appear in the Commission White Paper. END NOTE.) CRISIS MANAGEMENT MOVING UP EU AGENDA -------------- ¶5. (C) Michael Matthiessen, EU Council Secretariat Director of Civilian Crisis Management, said S/CRS activities and plans were strikingly similar to that of his Directorate. He said EU priorities for crisis management were expanding capabilities for missions in four priority areas: police, rule-of-law assistance, civil administration and civil protection. He noted that the EU had succeeded in meeting its headline goal targets for building rapid reaction capacities in the four priority areas. Given expanded EU membership, the Council was revising targets upward regarding the available on-call pool for the four civilian headline goal elements and two new areas: monitoring capacity and staff for EUSRs. ¶6. (C) Matthiesen stressed that the Council was responsible for not only strategic level planning, but also for the operational conduct of EU crisis-response missions. He described the EU's three current civilian crisis-management missions: the EU Police Mission (EUPM) in Bosnia, the PROXIMA police mission in FYROM, and the ESDP rule-of-law mission in Georgia. Matthiessen added that EU was considering or planning several future missions: (1) a police mission in Kinshasa to train DRC police; (2) the sending of police planners to Addis Ababa to help the African Union in Darfur; (3) an as-yet undefined civilian crisis management mission in Iraq (Matthiessen will go on a fact-finding trip to Iraq in October to assess needs for civilian crisis management in time for the November 5 visit of Iraqi Prime Minister Allawi to Brussels); (4) a possible police-assistance mission to the Palestinian Territories; and (5) a possible replacement of UNMIK police with EU police in Kosovo. (NOTE: deliberations on 3-5 above are in the beginning stages. END NOTE.) ¶7. (C) Most interlocutors pointed out that crisis management and dealing with failed and failing states is central to the European Security Strategy (ESS),which is the strategic foundation of the European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP). An important component of the ESS is "effective multilateralism with the UN at its core" (refs B, D). Against that background, our EU contacts said the EU would enthusiastically welcome an S/CRS approach, as described by Pascual, that included close cooperation with the UN. EU Council Secretariat Policy Unit Director Christoph Heusgen proposed that a first step on enhancing U.S.-EU coordination on crisis issues could be to begin a regular dialogue on &early warning8 assessments, given that the U.S. and the EU had undertaken similar, regular exercises to identify countries at-risk. He also referred us to the EU-UN Joint Declaration on Crisis Management. Jim Cloos, Council Secretariat Director for UN Affairs, Human Rights and SIPDIS Transatlantic Relations, is in charge of implementation of the agreement. In response to Ambassador Pascual,s appeal for EU support to encourage concrete efforts by the UN to improve coordination among UN agencies involved in post-conflict operations, Heusgen said Cloos should be brought into the loop in developing thoughts on how EU-UNcooperation might be relevant to the S/CRS approach. CIV/MIL PLANNING CELL: USEFUL S/CRS PARTNER -------------- ¶8. (C) Both Cooper and Matthiessen suggested that the Council's incipient Civilian/Military Planning Cell (CMPC) could be a natural partner for S/CRS. According to our interlocutors, the CMPC should be set up by the end of this year, with about 60 staff preparing action plans for crisis management -- including both military and civilian components as needed -- based on an EU watch list of potential crisis countries. Cooper said he foresaw the CMPC as first developing the capability to manage a crisis monitoring operation; later, he hoped, it could manage Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) programs; finally, even further in the future, Cooper envisaged the CMPC managing post-conflict reconstruction programs. Ambassador Pascual noted that the EU was aware of the U.S. position on EU planning capability. He welcomed, however, the cell,s stated role to act as a coordinator of EU civilian stabilization and reconstruction activities. COMMENT: SEEDS PLANTED, CONTINUE CONSULTS -------------- ¶9. (C) Since the December 2003 approval of the ESS and the related advent of the concept of effective multilateralism, crisis management and dealing with failing states have been moving toward the center of EU foreign and security policy thinking. Thus, this visit to introduce S/CRS struck a chord. EU capabilities and resources in these areas are not commensurate with the EU's economic clout or the political weight of the member states, but the EU is working hard to make progress -- the proposed Commission "stability instrument" and the planned Council civ/mil planning cell are two examples of this. Continued consultation with the EU on these issues could help us not only to reach our objectives for S/CRS, but also encourage a pragmatic and positive approach to "effective multilateralism," as opposed to the ideological multilateralism of many in the EU with its intense suspicion of American "hegemony." END COMMENT. ¶10. (U) This message has been cleared by Ambassador Pascual. MCKINLEY