SALAFRANCA PUSHES HIS CANDIDACY FOR UNDP

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 BRUSSELS 001484 SIPDIS DEPT FOR IO/EDA, EUR/ERA; PASS USAID FOR PPC/DCO E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/14/2015 TAGS: PREL PINR EAID SP UNDP EUN USEU BRUSSELS SUBJECT: SALAFRANCA PUSHES HIS CANDIDACY FOR UNDP REF: A. A) BRUSSELS 1389 ¶B. B) MADRID 1104 ¶C. C) ZUNIGA/BEHREND/SAINZ E-MAILS MARCH 2005 ¶D. D) LERNER/BEHREND/HUIZINGA E-MAILS MARCH 2005 ¶E. E) 04 BRUSSELS 4080 AND PREVIOUS Classified By: USEU POLOFF TODD HUIZINGA, FOR REASONS 1.4 (B) AND (D) ¶1. (C) SUMMARY: Following up on previous approaches to USEU, Embassy Madrid and USINT Havana (REFS B-D),Spanish member of the European Parliament (MEP) Jose Ignacio Salafranca solicited support from USEU again on April 7 for his candidacy for UNDP Administrator. Salafranca is well known to USEU as an influential MEP who has worked closely and constructively with us on many issues. We understand he does not appear on the UNSYG's short list, and has little chance for the job. Salafranca is an expert on Latin America, but to our knowledge he has no direct experience managing development issues. We told Salafranca the U.S. has not taken a position yet on any of the candidates. END SUMMARY. -------------- SPAIN'S CANDIDATE, BUT FROM OPPOSITION -------------- ¶2. (C) Salafranca pressed his candidacy with us again on April 7, stressing that, although he was the Spanish government's candidate, he was not a member of the governing Socialist Labor Party. Rather, he is a member of former President Aznar's Partido Popular. He said he had asked Aznar to approach the USG on his behalf, and that the Aznar government's former Foreign Minister Ana de Palacio had spoken recently to Secretary Rice urging U.S. support for his candidacy. He said the current Spanish government, though having named him as the GOS's candidate, was not enthusiastically lobbying for him because he belongs to the opposition. This had given him a disadvantage compared to other candidates, despite the broad support he enjoyed. His greatest support came from Latin American governments, he claimed, but several countries in Africa and many EU member states in which center-right governments were in power also supported him. He asserted that leaders in the European Commission had also indicated their support, but could not take an official position because two other EU member states, the UK and the Netherlands, also had fielded candidates. -------------- CLAIMS SUPPORT STRONG DESPITE SHORT LIST 
 -------------- ¶3. (C) Salafranca handed us a copy of the UNSYG's short list of candidates, dated March 22. His name was not among the six names on the list. He said leaders of the European People's Party (EPP),the umbrella organization within the EU of member-state center-right parties, had urged UNSYG Annan to include Salafranca on the short list. Salafranca added that the Ambassadors to the UN of Chile, Argentina, Dominican Republic, Panama, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Uruguay, Mexico, Poland, Ukraine, Armenia, Lithuania, and Tunisia had approached Annan's office as well, supporting his candidacy despite his absence from the short list. Salafranca said several contacts in New York had told him that Mark Malloch Brown, who left the post of UNDP Administrator to become UNSYG Annan's Chief of Staff, was not consistently forwarding information on Salafranca's candidacy to Annan. He asserted that the reason for this was Brown's support of the candidacy of fellow Briton, Baroness Valerie Amos. -------------- SALAFRANCA HAS WORKED WELL WITH USEU -------------- ¶4. (C) Salafranca is the leader of the center-right in the European Parliament Foreign Affairs Committee. He has worked closely with USEU on a range of issues over the past two years. A Latin America expert, Salafranca has echoed and sometimes explicitly supported U.S. policy on Venezuela, Colombia and above all, Cuba (REF E). Currently, he is working to drum up EU-wide support among center-right parliamentarians for the Cuban opposition; he is also a vocal critic of the January 31 EU decision to suspend the EU restrictive measures against Cuba (REF A). In 2003-04, Salafranca seconded Spanish President Aznar's support for U.S. Iraq policy, and in September he authored a European Parliament resolution on Iraq urging EU support for Iraq reconstruction. Significantly for the European Parliament, the resolution included no criticism of the U.S. role in Iraq. ¶5. (C) Salafranca's qualifications on development issues are less evident, related primarily to his expertise on Latin America. He is well traveled, well versed and widely known in the region, and has chaired the European Parliament Subcommittee on Central America, Mexico and Cuba. He was the European Parliament representative at the EU-Latin America Summits in 2002 (Madrid) and 2004 (Guadalajara),and chaired European Parliament election observation missions in Peru (2000) and Colombia (2002). Salafranca does not appear to have extensive administrative experience, nor any direct experience in managing development programs. MCKINLEY .