SEPT. 13-14 GAERC: READ-OUT FROM DUTCH

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 THE HAGUE 002346

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/16/2014
TAGS: NL PREL EUN
SUBJECT: SEPT. 13-14 GAERC: READ-OUT FROM DUTCH

REF: A. (A) BRUSSELS 3897


B. (B) THE HAGUE 2290

Classified By: PolcounsA. Schofer for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d).


1. (C) Summary. Emboffs discussed Sept. 13-14 GAERC with
MFA Political Affairs Department Director Jaap Werner on
September 16. He said the the EU's foreign ministers had
discussed Secretary Powell's comments about genocide in
Darfur, the financing of the UN Protective Force in Iraq, and
EU relations with Russia. He also described the problems the
French had had with the ASEM package agreed at the Gymnich.
See ref A for public GAERC conclusions. End summary.

Sudan/Darfur
--------------


2. (C) Ministers are awaiting developments in New York,
Werner said, and did not substantively move the ball forward
with regard to imposing sanctions on Sudan. Werner opined
that sanctions were discussed in general terms, but without a
package of actual proposals on the table. Ministers
primarily wanted to "send a message" to Sudan that sanctions
are a real possibility if the situation does not improve. In
addition to the expected discussion on Sudan, the ministers
felt they needed to react to Secretary Powell's statement
that events in Darfur constituted genocide. Ministers wanted
to acknowledge that statement and called for the UN to
investigate, Werner said, but would leave it up to the UN to
determine whether genocide had in fact been committed.


3. (SBU) The FM Bot trip to Khartoum, originally scheduled
for Sep 9 and canceled when the Sudanese could not guarantee
appropriate interlocutors, has not been rescheduled. It is
possible that he will try to combine it with a trip to the
African Great Lakes, mentioned as the "open troika" visit in
the GAERC public conclusions.

Iran
--------------


3. (C) Werner said that the EU-3 were more transparent than
previously about their discussions with Iran, and garnered
full EU support for their position that the critical IAEA
should be November, not September. He made clear that the
EU-3 do not believe that their efforts have run their full
course, and stressed that the EU was prepared to continue to
let them take the lead on this issue.

Iraq
--------------


4. (C) The Dutch have received member state commitments for
less than half the 26 million objective, but hope to be able
to provide a positive EU response to the UN next week. This
depends on negotiations now going on between Commission and
UN officials about the EU supporting the "inner ring" as
opposed to the "middle ring", thus avoiding the constraints
on spending of Commission funds for military activities.


5. (C) Some ministers were still very concerned about
security in establishing an EU presence in Iraq or sending
election observers. They do not want to position enough
people to provide their own security, but they do not want to
send in people without them being secure. (Werner
acknowledged that this is a "catch 22" situation hampering
progress.) The EU will send another fact-finding mission to
Iraq shortly to develop further the proposals for EU
activity. The proposals will be discussed at the November
GAERC and hopefully endorsed by the Council.

ASEM
--------------


6. (C) The GAERC officially did no more than endorse the
package agreed at the Gymnich, but Werner reported there was
some trouble getting the package from Gymnich to GAERC. The
French believed that the language on the EU response to a
Burmese failure to meet EU demands on human rights was too
firm, i.e., the trigger for sanctions was too "automatic."
The French claimed that the lack of the French foreign
minister at Gymnich gave them the right to revisit the
"trigger" language later, according to Werner, and had tried
to weaken this provision at PSC and COREPER last week.
Werner said the Dutch presidency was not prepared to make any
changes on this point and had succeeded in getting the
"trigger" language approved in the GAERC conclusion.
According to Werner, if the Burmese fail to meet all three
conditions by October 8, the October 11 GAERC is expected to
take the steps outlined in the conclusion. If there is a
desire to soften the EU position, he added, the burden would
clearly be on those seeking to change the decision to make
their case, as the current position is that the EU will act
unless all three conditions are met. On the other hand,
Werner acknowledged that there would probably be some
sympathy in the EU for responding positively to a partial
Burmese concession in order to encourage progress.

7. (C) On another point of concern to the French, the
financial sanctions language in the conclusion was tightened
to specify that EU companies could not finance debt or equity
in Burmese state-owned firms. This was genuinely a
"technical change" (ref B) in that the French wanted to
exclude commercial (trade) financing partly on legal grounds
(and, Werner said, partly because certain French companies
had transactions under way that they did not want threatened).

China arms embargo
--------------


8. (C) Werner said the embargo was not discussed either
formally or informally. He expressed his personal view that
neither the French nor the Chinese are pushing on this issue
at this point, though the Chinese had brought it up in
contacts in Beijing. He warned that this might be simply
because Chirac had not focused on the issue recently,
although he suggested he probably would in preparation for
his trip to China. Chirac could also seek to create a "fait
accompli" during his visit to force the EU and the Dutch
presidency to respond. Werner noted that the EU has its
Human Rights Dialog with China next week, and the October
GAERC will evaluate the human rights dialog both with China
and Iran.

Russia
--------------


9. (C) Although not on the published agenda nor in the
published conclusions, the ministers did discuss EU relations
with Russia, according to Werner. The Dutch raised the
issue, partly in relation to the Russian reaction to Bot's
comments at the Gymnich about Beslan and partly based on
discussions at the Gynmich's lunch with candidate states,
where Moldova and Ukraine received attention. Apparently at
both the Gymnich and the GAERC, the new member states were
vocal about their concerns vis-a-vis Russia. The new members
reportedly drew attention to the fact that the EU's "Russia
strategy" and friendly "neighborhood" policies did not take
fully into account Russia's own, apparently different agenda
for its "near abroad." More and more, they said, Russia
appears intent on recovering influence in former Soviet
space. Werner said that the ministers observed that Russia
seems to prefer poor, weak and unstable neighbors, and was
quite successful at playing EU member states off against each
other. Werner noted that this general, "philosophical"
discussion of the EU's Russia strategy would continue, next
at the political directors meeting in New York, but he
specifically said he would not yet term it a "review" of the
EU's strategy.
SOBEL