CHARGE'S MEETING WITH VICE PRESIDENT

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 MADRID 000724

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/23/2015
TAGS: PREL PGOV PTER CVIS SP
SUBJECT: CHARGE'S MEETING WITH VICE PRESIDENT

REF: A. A) MADRID 666


B. B) MADRID 568

C. C) MADRID 696

Classified By: Charge d'Affaires Bob Manzanares; reasons 1.4 (B) and (D
).


1. (C) Summary. Charge met with Spanish Vice President Maria
Teresa Fernandez de la Vega on 2/22 for a review of
U.S.-Spain relations and to discuss USG security, consular,
and commercial priorities in Spain. Charge congratulated de
la Vega on her government's success in obtaining a good
turnout and a positive result in the EU's first referendum on
the EU Constitution. He thanked the Vice President for
Spain's participation in a PRT in western Afghanistan and
urged Spain to lift its caveats on the participation of
Spanish NATO officers in NATO operations in Iraq. De la Vega
said that the Zapatero government would meet its obligations
in both Afghanistan and Iraq, but made it clear that Zapatero
will remain "consistent" with respect to barring the
participation of Spanish forces in Iraq. On counterterrorism
cooperation, de la Vega welcomed Charge's support for visits
to Washington by Spain's Interior and Justice ministers and
discussed Spanish efforts to tighten its terrorism finance
laws. She urged high-level USG participation in upcoming
commemoration of the Madrid March 11 train bombings, saying
that attendance below cabinet level would be cast as USG
insensitivity in the Spanish press. Charge briefed de la
Vega on USG biometric passport requirements, criteria for
Visa Waiver Program participation, and USG willingness to
discuss sharing visa lookout information with Spanish
authorities. Charge also discussed U.S. commercial
priorities, including our concerns with an apparent Spanish
shift away from a science-based approach on biotech products
and our readiness to work with Spain to raise awareness on
intellectual property protection issues.


2. (C) This was a good initial meeting with Vice President de
la Vega, who appears to wield considerable influence, both as
Vice President and as coordinator of the Council of
Ministers. She has a reputation as a tough, hard working
politician with particular expertise in judicial issues.
Though like many of the current set of Socialist leaders de
la Vega is unfamiliar with the U.S., she was friendly and
seemed well disposed to be a helpful interlocutor. End
Summary.


3. (C) Since Zapatero took office, Vice President de la Vega
has emerged as an activist leader both in the public
spotlight and behind the scenes. She has taken on tough
issues, such as the Basque problem and mobilizing an
apathetic public to participate in the referendum on the
European Constitution. She has not assumed a leading role on
foreign policy issues, leaving that arena to Zapatero and
Foreign Minister Moratinos, but she has an indirect influence
on a wide range of issues and frequently meets with Zapatero.
We sought a meeting with de la Vega in order to establish a
working channel with the key day-to-day manager of the
Zapatero administration and to provide her a sense of USG
objectives in Spain.


4. (C) Charge began by noting the excellent communication the
Embassy enjoys with Spanish counterparts and thanking the GOS
for its recent steps to improve bilateral ties. He
congratulated de la Vega for Zapatero's effort to get out the
vote for the referendum on the European Constitution (ref A).
De la Vega described the vote as a symbol that Spain would
be a permanent member of a club that seemed impossibly out of
reach during the Franco dictatorship. She said the
overwhelming "yes" vote in support of the Constitution was
the least Spain could do to support an institution that had
transformed Spain in just 30 years.

//AFGHANISTAN, IRAQ//


5. (C) De la Vega welcomed the visit to Europe of President
Bush, whom she lauded for emphasizing "the issues that unite
us." Charge expressed appreciation for Spain's leadership of
a PRT in Afghanistan. De la Vega said that Spain understood
its obligation to help rebuild Afghanistan. Charge urged de
la Vega to follow up by lifting Spain's bar on the
participation of Spanish officers assigned to NATO billets in
NATO operations in Iraq. De la Vega replied that "Iraq is
not Afghanistan" and, while Spain would do all it could in
the rebuilding of Iraq, the Zapatero government intended to
"remain consistent" regarding its position on Spanish
military deployment to Iraq. She said that the Spanish MFA,
MOD, and Ministry of Interior would be working together to
provide training (in Spain) for Iraqi judicial and security
officials.

//COUNTER-TERRORISM COOPERATION//


6. (C) Charge said the USG was very pleased with the
excellent level of cooperation between Embassy security
officials and their Spanish counterparts. He said we had
conveyed to the Department the interest of Minister of
Interior Alonso and Justice Minister Aguilar in visiting
Washington for counter-terrorism discussions and that we
hoped to arrange such visits now that their USG counterparts
were in place. De la Vega thanked Charge for the Embassy's
support, noting that Spanish authorities had great expertise
in dealing with ETA, but needed to exchange as much
information as possible with the USG on the new threat posed
by Islamic extremists, for the good of both countries.


7. (C) De la Vega cited Spain's success against ETA's
finances as an example of a useful anti-terrorism tool that
needed to be updated to confront the al-Qaida threat. Charge
agreed, saying that while Spain had a very good terrorism
financing law on the books, such laws would be greatly
strengthened once the Interior Ministry developed
implementing legislation. De la Vega, who served as Deputy
Minister of Justice during the Felipe Gonzalez presidency,
said the Zapatero government was evaluating whether changes
would need to be made to the existing law to take into
account the increased need for international coordination on
terrorism financing and the emerging link between organized
crime and terrorism. She noted that the March 11 train
bombers had funded the operation through proceeds from drug
trafficking and that several terrorist suspects had prior
convictions for narcotics trafficking.


8. (C) Raising the upcoming commemoration of the March 11,
2004 Madrid train bombings, Charge informed de la Vega that
DHS Director for International Affairs Cris Arcos would
represent the USG. De la Vega thanked Charge for the
information, but expressed concern that sub-cabinet
representation at the event would be interpreted as a slight
of Spanish victims of terrorism. Charge said that we were
pleased that Ambassador Arcos would be able to attend and
that misinterpretations of the level of attendance would be
unforunate, but would have no basis in fact.

//BORDER SECURITY//


9. (C) Charge said the USG was working closely with Spanish
officials to help improve border security for both countries.
He drew de la Vega's attention to the requirement for visa
waiver countries to have a biometric passport program in
place by October 25, 2005. Charge also discussed the
Embassy's interest in Spain's centralization of overseas
passport production and noted the USG's offer to share its
visa namecheck system on a bilateral pilot basis. De la Vega
agreed on the need for strong bilateral collaboration to
improve border security, particularly in breaking down
barriers to the smooth flow of intelligence/lookout
information. She said that, like the U.S. and other
countries, Spain had to work hard to improve cooperation
between its intelligence and police agencies. She
acknowledged that the Zapatero government's efforts to
stimulate information sharing among Spanish security agencies
had yielded only mixed results thus far.

//COMMERCIAL ISSUES//


10. (SBU) Charge emphasized the importance the USG placed on
good trade relations with Spain and discussed biotech
products and intellectual property rights as matters of
particular concern. Noting that we had raised the biotech
issue in a recent meeting with Minister of Agriculture Elena
Espinosa (ref B),Charge explained that the delay in approval
of Monsanto's NK603 corn seed variety had triggered fears
among U.S. producers that Spain may be shifting away from a
science-based approach to biotech goods. He also urged Spain
to vote in favor of Pioneer 1507 seed applications in an
upcoming EU Commission in Brussels rather than abstaining as
Spain had done recently. De la Vega said that she was not an
expert on biotechnology issues, but that it was her
understanding that GOS officials were sorting through EU
regulations to ensure that Spain was in compliance with EU
protocols related to the purchase/importation of biotech
goods. She promised to follow up with Minister of
Agriculture Espinosa to ensure that there was no looming
conflict with respect to the importation of U.S. biotech
products.


11. (SBU) De la Vega indicated strong interest in and
understanding of intellectual property rights issues of
importance to U.S. companies. She said that a group of
Spanish artists had visited her the day before to indicate
their distress over the growing problem of music/video piracy
and to urge swift action by the GOS. Charge said it would be
helpful to fix problems with Spain's draft law implementing
the EU copyright directive. De la Vega agreed that stronger
laws would help, but said that there was a more fundamental
problem of getting Spanish citizens to recognized IPR
violations as serious infractions. She expressed great
frustration with the Spanish authorities' difficulties in
making IPR cases prosecutable. She said the Zapatero
government was working to improve the effectiveness of its
Integrated Plan for Fighting Intellectual Property Piracy
(ref C).

//COMMENT//


12. (C) This was a good initial meeting with Vice President
de la Vega, who appears to wield considerable influence, both
as Vice President and as coordinator of the Council of
Ministers. She has a reputation as a tough, hard working
politician with particular expertise in judicial issues.
Though like many of the current set of Socialist leaders de
la Vega is unfamiliar with the U.S., she was friendly and
seemed well disposed to be a helpful interlocutor.

//BIOGRAPHIC NOTES//

13.(SBU) Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega was born in
Valencia in 1949. She received a masters degree in law from
Universidad Complutense in Madrid and holds a doctorate from
the Universidad Central de Barcelona. She also studied
international law at the University of Strasbourg.


14. (SBU) In 1979, de la Vega joined the Unified Socialist
Party of Catalonia (the Catalan branch of PSOE) and became
one of the first women to join "Democratic Justice," an
association of progressive jurists known today as the "Judges
for Democracy." In 1989, de la Vega was appointed Director
General of Services in the Ministry of Justice and later
served on the cabinet of the Committee of Directors for Legal
Cooperation in the Council of Europe. In 1994, de la Vega
was appointed Deputy Minister of Justice by the Felipe
Gonzalez Government, a post she vacated following the
electoral victory of the Popular Party in 1996. During the
Aznar administration, de la Vega was secretary general of the
Socialist Party's parliamentary group.


15. (C) De la Vega has a reputation as a skilled,
tough-minded politician and as a capable manager. Her style
is friendly, but precise and business-like. She has visited
the U.S., but is not especially familiar with U.S. society or
with the USG. Nevertheless, she seemed favorably disposed
towards the USG and to greater contact with USG officials.

MANZANARES