EU DEFENSE MINISTERS INFORMAL IN PORTUGAL

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 LISBON 002564

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/10/2016
TAGS: PINS PREL MOPS MARR AF XA ZL PO EUN
SUBJECT: EU DEFENSE MINISTERS INFORMAL IN PORTUGAL


Classified By: POL CHIEF TROY FITRELL, REASONS 1.4 (B,D)


1. (C) Summary. High Rep Solana briefed EU Defense Ministers
on the first face-to-face Troika-led negotiations between
Serbs and Kosovars. Solana's spokesman said the EU would
support any necessary action by troops currently stationed in
Kosovo to maintain stability. Solana strongly defended the
ESDP mission in Afghanistan and repeatedly criticized U.S.
efforts at training police. The Portuguese Minister called
on his colleagues to engage in a public diplomacy effort to
prop up flagging support for EU efforts in Afghanistan.
Officials note that the ESDP mission for Chad/CAR will not
get underway until November at least, given administrative
obstacles still to be surmounted. The French are providing
the bulk of the troops, but are concerned by the scant
commitments of other EU member states. End summary.

Defense Ministers Informal
--------------

2. (U) European Union (EU) Defense Ministers, joined by other
EU officials, conducted an informal defense ministerial in
the Portuguese city of Evora September 28-29. They were
joined, for issue-specific sessions, by the Ghanaian Minister
of Defense (representing the African Union),the Turkish
Minister of Defense, and the Ministers of Defense of the
Maghreb countries (Algeria, Libya, Morocco, Mauritania, and
Tunisia). The NATO Secretary General was on the schedule to
discuss NATO-EU relations, but was unable to attend.

Kosovo
--------------

3. (U) Portuguese Minister of Defense Nuno Severiano
Teixeira, representing the EU Presidency, opened the session
with an immediate stress that the EU must work with relevant
institutions, including the UN and NATO, to achieve a
negotiated solution. Teixeira noted that the Ministers were
considering every contingency in regard to potential events
in Kosovo following the December 10 expiration of the
Troika's negotiating mandate, including a unilateral
declaration of independence.


4. (U) EU High Representative for Common Foreign and Security
Policy Javier Solana attended the second day of meetings,
having just arrived from the face-to-face talks between Serbs
and Kosovars in New York. His readout of the meeting
stressed that the Troika could only act as a catalyst and
that the value of the talks lay in finally getting the two
sides to meet directly. The two sides agreed to meet again,
Solana said, probably next week in Brussels where they would
continue to discuss the Serbs' autonomy proposal and the
Kosovars' Treaty of Mutual Friendship. Solana suggested that
no new ideas would be inserted in the negotiations until
after Kosovar elections.


5. (C) In marked contrast to Teixeira's comment the day
before, Solana insisted that the EU was not considering
post-December 10 scenarios in order not to prejudice the
negotiations. Solana's spokesman told us privately that,
while the Defense Ministers were not discussing post-December
10 scenarios, the EU's Foreign Ministers were engaged in that
very activity; most recently at the Gymnich meeting in Viana
do Castelo September 7-8. Spanish Defense Minister Jose
Antonio Alonso separately noted that Spain would not support
or recognize a unilateral declaration of independence.


6. (C) The spokesman noted that Defense Ministers had
discussed operational issues regarding a European Security
and Defense Policy (ESDP) mission to Kosovo, although they
had not reached agreement on how to authorize such a mission
in the absence of a negotiated settlement or a UN Security
Council Resolution. Troops on the ground, he noted, are
there under NATO auspices and the EU "would support any
necessary action to maintain stability."

Afghanistan
--------------

7. (U) Teixeira noted that, regardless of formal agreements,
relations between the EU and NATO in Afghanistan were
excellent. "The two indispensable organizations," he said,
must succeed there, both for the future of Afghanistan and
also to help Europe in both its counterterrorism and
counternarcotics efforts. Teixeira further noted that EU
member state governments -- including his own -- needed to
engage in strong public diplomacy efforts to buttress
domestic support for Afghanistan operations.


8. (C) Teixeira opined that the struggles in Afghanistan were
the responsibility of the entire international community, not
just NATO, and that Portugal would augment its own
contributions. (Note: He may have been referring to

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Portugal's recent decision to contribute an Operational
Mentoring Liaison Team to ISAF beyond Portugal's other
contributions. End note.)


9. (U) In an impromptu discussion with journalists and
diplomats on the margins of the meeting, Solana opined that
the ESDP mission was moving with appropriate haste, despite
Afghan President Karzai's criticism. When a German
journalist raised other criticisms of the ESDP mission,
Solana responded that "it doesn't matter what the Americans
say." Solana continued that instead of "giving guns to base
security guards and training every single policeman," Europe
was trying to establish a train-the-trainer concept that
would leave behind a legacy of citizen security. The
journalist pushed back that it had been, in fact, Dutch and
German officials who had made the criticisms of the ESDP
mission, but Solana only repeated his earlier comments,
including his criticism of the U.S. effort. (Note: The
journalist asking the question had just returned from a visit
to Afghanistan coordinated by NATO. End note.)


10. (C) Solana's spokesman noted privately that bilateral
agreements to allow for security to the ESDP police training
mission were critically important, since Turkey had blocked a
formal EU-NATO agreement. Turkey attended a session to
discuss this issue, but no resolution was reached. Alonso
suggested separately that Afghanistan needed a UN High
Representative.

Chad/CAR
--------------

11. (C) Several officials noted that the French had offered
approximately 1,500 men for an ESDP mission to Chad and the
Central African Republic (CAR),to protect refugees and
internally displaced persons (IDP) and to contain spill-over
fighting from Darfur and coordinate a response to that
crisis. Each of these officials lamented that no other
"large" EU state was matching the French contribution. By
the end of the meeting, a French contact told us that it
looked like Belgium, Poland, Ireland, and Sweden would
contribute troops. He noted that Germany and Spain were
definitively out, with Germany offering only "political
support." Alonso then pointedly and repeatedly confirmed
that Spain would not contribute to the mission.


12. (C) Solana's spokesman said privately that he did not
envision any deployment before November, given the
administrative obstacles still to surmount. The mission, he
noted, is for one year only when the mandate would be passed
to the UN. Should the president of Chad still object to UN
troops at that time, some solution will have to be found but
the EU will make no commitments at this point beyond the
initial year. He also suggested that some other small EU
states might contribute, as might such non-EU states as
Croatia or Macedonia.


13. (C) A French Colonel, attending the proceedings, told us
that French military officials feared that the potential
mission would be "a coalition of weakness," if a large number
of countries contributed a few troops each. It would be
unlikely, he said, that such troops would be prepared to
operate in such an environment, would have useful or
complementary skills, or could handle their own logistics.
He heaped particular scorn on a country that had allegedly
offered to send two staff officers. (Note: Later, a
Portuguese official told us that Lisbon had been considering
deploying only a few staff officers to the mission, given
extensive Portuguese commitments to other military operations
around the globe. End note.)

Spanish Proposal
--------------

14. (U) Spanish Minister of Defense Alonso twice called his
own press conferences with the Spanish press to push his
government's proposal that a core group of six large EU
states engage in coordination on several areas relative to
security. This was, he said, in advance of the EU reform
treaty, but that there was no prohibition against it. This
would, concluded Alonso, allow the EU to respond more rapidly
to breaking crises. Teixeira -- whose country had not been
asked to participate -- stated that the proposal had not been
formally raised in the ministers' deliberations but that he
would raise it with Alonso during upcoming bilateral talks.


15. (C) The French Colonel said he found this proposal
"irritating." Solana's spokesman rolled his eyes and said it
"was not worth discussing."

Hoffman