AUSTRIAN MEDIA HIGHLIGHTS: March 23, 2007

UNCLAS VIENNA 000756 SIPDIS SIPDIS DEPT FOR EUR/AGS, INR/EU, AND EUR/PPD FOR YVETTE SAINT-ANDRE OSD FOR COMMANDER CHAFFEE WHITEHOUSE FOR NSC/WEUROPE E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: OPRC KPAO AU SUBJECT: AUSTRIAN MEDIA HIGHLIGHTS: March 23, 2007 Darabos Met With Eurofighter Boss ¶1. Austrian Defense Minister Norbert Darabos met with Eurofighter boss Aloysius Rauen to discuss the contract to purchase 18 jets for the Austrian armed forces. The time and place of the meeting was kept secret. It is believed that the talks aimed at finding ways to reduce the cost of the aircraft. On Wednesday, the first of the 18 Eurofighter jets for the Austrian military carried out its maiden flight at the EADS plant in Bavaria. The first jets are due to be delivered in June. Reporting like all major Austrian media on the Eurofighter deal, semi-official daily Wiener Zeitung writes that Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer has dismissed criticism of his Defense Minister, stressing that the ministry's task force on the issue had done sufficient preparatory work for Norbert Darabos to be able to hold "relevant talks " with Eurofighter boss Aloysius Rauen. With regard to the missing software licenses, the Chancellor blamed the previous government for "unduly delaying the decision on the licenses." He is nonetheless confident that Darabos will "manage brilliantly," despite the fact that this oversight had not made Austria's position any easier, Gusenbauer said. Meanwhile, according to independent provincial daily Salzburger Nachrichten, the parliamentary investigative committee looking into the Eurofighter deal says some of its findings suggest clandestine party funding in connection with the interceptor purchase. The daily cites as example a press conference held at the Defense Ministry in 2002, for which Gernot Rumpold's PR company charged 96,000 - a sum the Austrian Public Relations Association has described as "unthinkable under normal circumstances." State Prosecutors Investigating Grasser ¶2. A dossier compiled by the financial market supervisory body FMA and the Austrian Central Bank OeNB at the request of former Finance Minister Karl-Heinz Grasser in connection with the affair over Austrian bank Bawag could now have repercussions for Grasser. The Federal Prosecutor's Office has confirmed it has launched an investigation into suspected of abuse of office by the former Minister. The reason: Grasser's office sent out a questionnaire to the FMA and the OeNB, allegedly with the aim of creating a connection between the scandal-ridden bank, the SPOe and the Union Association OeGB. Grasser has dismissed the allegations. Interview with Ursula Plassnik ¶3. In an interview with an Austrian daily on the occasion of 50 years of the European Union, Austrian Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik dismissed views "discrediting Austrians in general as notoriously anti-EU." The Austrian people are "quite aware that they are well off with the EU," she stressed. In an interview with liberal daily Der Standard, Austrian Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik, pointing to periodic Eurobarometer surveys, emphasized that Austrian support for the EU is "growing slowly, but constantly. We should stop getting ourselves into a bad mood with such whining," she stressed. It is a fact that Austria, "because of its location in the center of the European Continent, has profited enormously. Virtually every province these days can rely on entirely new and positive relations with Austria's neighboring states." Nevertheless, she wants Austrians to become better "EU friends," Plassnik said. On the missile defense system the US is planning to set up in Poland and the Czech Republic, the Minister said that it "would be wrong not to consider the citizens' concerns" regarding the plan, and that she has noted an "enormous lack of information and clarity with regard to the issue, which needs to be addressed in a calm manner." Europe is "working on a joint defense and security identity, so we should deal with the issue carefully and responsibly. I am confident we will succeed here." Interview with Ambassador Gray ¶4. The United States Ambassador to the European Union Boyden Gray gave an interview to a leading Austrian daily. Ambassador Gray discussed 50 years of the EU, transatlantic relations, and present and future opportunities and challenges for US-EU relations. No one, he stressed, had benefited more from the European Union than the United States. In an interview with centrist daily Die Presse, US Ambassador to the EU Boyden Gray says the US is considering the EU a "great success. No one has profited more from the EU than we did, at least economically. We have the strongest trade relations in history and we're trying to expand them further. The EU is our strongest ally, apart from a few differences of opinion. Our relationship is very healthy, and has never been stronger." Although US perception of the EU has changed, "most Americans and their Congressmen and Senators are not really aware of EU investments in the US. There is no recognition for how many US jobs have been created with European money." However, the "strength of US-EU relations is simultaneously its weakness: Things that run smoothly do not make headline news," Ambassador Gray reasons. Militarily, he continues, "more EU resources would be an asset for the EU, for NATO and for the US. In Kosovo, for example, everyone would benefit from a stronger European presence. And, it would not be considered competition for NATO." The EU Constitution, the Ambassador suggests, "has mostly symbolic value. It is less important than completing the EU internal market, as for example regarding the free flow of people, following enlargement. This could easily take up to ten years." Regarding Turkey, Ambassador Gray stated in his opinion "membership will happen in time." A Discussion on Missile Defense ¶5. The security affairs writer of an Austrian daily reports on a "unilateral discussion" of the controversial missile defense system the US is planning to set up in Poland and the Czech Republic. Security affairs writer for centrist daily Die Presse Burkhard Bischof reports on a panel discussion at the Renner Institute about the planned US missile defense system in Europe. While a Czech activist complained his country's TV stations never invited opponents of the project, the Renner Institute did the opposite by only inviting panelists who are against the defense shield, Bischof says. Consequently, although the audience was presented with a number of good arguments against the US plans, the event did not provide for a lively and controversial debate of the issue, given the fact that no supporters were present. It was a one-sided discussion, according to the security affairs writer. Bischof quotes one of the panelists, Roman Kuzniar, formerly the head of the Polish Foreign Ministry's planning bureau, as arguing the missile defense system reflected the Bush administration's "tendency to militarize international relations." US defense policy was not defensive, but offensive, Kuzniar said, and added that the "true objective of the defense shield is to make the US immune to retaliatory strikes. But if the Americans are immune in such a way, it would become even easier for them to intervene all over the world." UN Secretary General Shaken by Blast--but a "Ray of Hope" ¶6. UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon was shaken by a blast during a news conference in Baghdad, when an explosion about 50 meters away rocked the building in which he was meeting with the Iraqi Prime Minister. The President of the UN Security Council has condemned the attack, stressing the UNSC members are "dismayed, and strongly condemn the abhorrent terrorist attack on the Iraqi Prime Minister's office where the Secretary General participated in a joint press conference." Meanwhile, reporting on Premier Al-Maliki and the government's decision to push for a dialogue with Iraqi insurgents, independent provincial daily Salzburger Nachrichten writes that the Iraqi Prime Minister's "handshake with a Shiite leader who was recently released from jail, and the contacts with the national Sunni resistance could succeed in marginalizing al Qaeda. There is a "ray of hope in Baghdad," the daily says. Indeed, there are signs some Iraqi insurgent groups are getting increasingly battle-weary. Their prime motive was fighting against the US occupation, but now they appear to be concluding it might be easier to get rid of the foreign troops though political means rather than with violence. The Iraqi Premier, who urgently needs some political success to counter the growing distrust of both Americans and his own people, has started developing contacts behind the scenes with the old arch-enemies of the Shiites and Kurds: the Sunni Baathists in Iraq and in Jordanian exile, who lost both their jobs and their prestige with the toppling of Saddam Hussein. And while initially these Sunni insurgent groups cooperated with the Islamists, they are now distancing themselves very clearly from the predominantly non-Iraqi terrorists, the daily says. UNSC to Vote on Iran ¶7. The permanent members of the United Nations Security Council say they will vote Saturday on imposing tougher sanctions on Iran over its refusal to suspend uranium enrichment. Amendments to the resolution proposed by South Africa have mostly been rejected. The draft would ban all exports of weapons and add 28 people to a list whose assets abroad are frozen. Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has meanwhile announced he will present new proposals in connection with the issue. Kilner