SPANISH VIEWS ON WORLD METEOROLOGICAL ORGANIZATION

UNCLAS MADRID 000834 SIPDIS SIPDIS DEPARTMENT FOR IO/T (GUINNEVERE ROBERTS) AND EUR/WE; GENEVA FOR USDEL TO THE WMO E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: SENV TPHY SP SUBJECT: SPANISH VIEWS ON WORLD METEOROLOGICAL ORGANIZATION (WMO) CONFERENCE REF: SECSTATE 47359 ESTHOFF made reftel points May 7 to MFA Deputy Director General for International Technical Organizations Enrique Yturriaga, urging Spain to support U.S. positions at the May 7-25 WMO Quadrennial Conference in Geneva. Yturriaga offered the following comments keyed to the major areas outlined in reftel nonpaper: -- Getting Back to Basics -- Spain agrees with the U.S. that the WMO should remain focused on current priorities and should not expand into areas outside its core expertise. -- Scientific/Technical Priorities -- Spain strongly supports the U.S. emphasis on the importance of the WMO's Disaster Preparedness and Mitigation Program (DPM). Spain does not have firm views on modeling, but notes that the EU has successfully integrated its member states' weather modeling outputs. Expanding this sort of cooperation into an international ensemble model strikes Spain as logical and useful. --Convention Change -- While Spain sees some utility in the German proposal to catalogue fields in which the WMO is engaged, Spain agrees with U.S. concerns about the need to ensure that the WMO does not waste resources or reduce efficiencies by duplicating work already being carried out by other UN organizations. Thus, Spain, like the U.S., has concerns about the German proposal to expand the WMO's purview. Yturriaga added that Spain supports the French proposal to expand UNEP into the UN Environmental Organization (UNEO). Spain thinks that it makes no sense to try to expand the purview of both UNEP and the WMO. Expanding the purview of one organization (UNEP to UNEO) should imply limiting the purview of other related organizations like the WMO. Yturriaga said there was no/no consensus EU position on the German proposal. He thought G-77 views might prove critical in determining the fate of the German proposal. -- World Climate Conference -- While giving no clear indication as to whether Spain would support or oppose a World Climate Conference, Yturriaga did stress that Spain shares our concerns about not wasting money by duplicating work already being carried out by other UN organizations. -- Program and Budget -- Yturriaga indicated that this was probably the greatest area of disagreement between Spain and the U.S. Spain will not support a zero nominal growth budget and instead backs a "slight" increase in WMO funding. Spain believes the WMO is engaged in important work (he again cited the DPM) and suggested that it was inconsistent for the U.S. to urge funding of its key priorities while at the same time pushing for a zero nominal growth budget. -- Governance -- Yturriaga was unaware of concerns about Member State access to WMO Executive Council documents and indicated that the Swiss proposal to reform this governance area appeared to make sense. He thought Spain would support the Swiss initiative. He also said Spain would support the U.S. idea to allow Member States to send observers to WMO Executive Council sessions. Aguirre