FRENCH AGREE WITH U.S. ON SERBIA'S NEED TO

C O N F I D E N T I A L PARIS 006042 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/07/2016 TAGS: PGOV PREL PINR ICTY SR YI FR SUBJECT: FRENCH AGREE WITH U.S. ON SERBIA'S NEED TO COOPERATE WITH THE ICTY REF: STATE 146343 Classified By: POLITICAL MINISTER COUNSELOR JOSIAH ROSENBLATT FOR REASO NS 1.5 (b) and (d) ¶1. (C) French MFA officers responsible for the Balkans confirmed on September 7 that the GOF was "completely in line" with U.S. thinking on Serbia's need to demonstrate effective cooperation with the ICTY. France, he said, had been skeptical about the EU "Action Plan" from the start and was now convinced that it had only served to complicate the situation. French officials continue to encourage Serbia to take concrete steps to apprehend Mladic and deliver him to The Hague. ¶2. (C) MFA officials noted that not all countries in the EU shared France's resolve and that the Finnish Presidency, EU High Representative Solana, the Italians, Germans, and the Austrians might be willing to overlook Serbia's lack of cooperation with the ICTY, in order to restart SAA negotiations. Many EU members, they added, thought it was necessary to give Serbia some sort of incentive as Kosovo final status negotiations enter the end game. The GOF hoped that Carla Del Ponte's upcoming report might give France's position more traction in the EU. The French stressed that lacking real Serbian commitment to the Action Plan, France would lobby against reopening SAA negotiations. They added, however, that the GOF was not likely to block consensus. The Croatia experience had shown them that it was not worthwhile; bilateral tensions with Zagreb persist as a result of France's holdout position on SAA negotiations last year. ¶3. (C) The French surmised that EU demands for greater cooperation with the ICTY as a precondition to reopening SAA negotiations would not put significant pressure on Serbia. The principle, however, is important. Serbia still viewed EU membership in the abstract; the visa regime has more immediacy and is, they said, the most effective tool Europeans had to pressure Serbia. That said, when asked what France thought about using Schengen talks as a stronger political tool, our MFA interlocuters noted that there is a great deal of sympathy in the GOF for the Serbs' visa situation. It was in no one's interests to block your average Serbian citizen from access to EU countries where they could better learn western values and discover business opportunities that would eventually assist the recovery of the Serbian economy. Please visit Paris' Classified Website at: http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/paris/index.c fm STAPLETON