POLAND-EU: FM FOTYGA REQUESTS THAT U.S. MONTHLY

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 WARSAW 000316 SIPDIS SIPDIS DEPARTMENT FOR EUR/ERA AND EUR/NCE E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/07/2017 TAGS: PREL PGOV PHUM ETRD EUN PL SUBJECT: POLAND-EU: FM FOTYGA REQUESTS THAT U.S. MONTHLY GAERC VIEWS BE INCLUDED IN HER BRUSSELS BRIEFING BOOK REF: A. STATE 13840 ¶B. WARSAW 181 ¶C. 06 WARSAW 2388 Classified By: Political Counselor Mary T. Curtin, reasons 1.4(b) and ( d) ¶1. (C) SUMMARY. According to MFA officials, FM Anna Fotyga has requested that her briefing book for every GAERC include the text of the monthly U.S. pre-GAERC demarches. Fotyga has become fully engaged in Poland's relations with the EU and clearly values U.S. views, and our cooperation with MFA officials on EU matters has never been better. The GOP shares U.S. positions on all Ref A items, but may have to give in to overwhelming consensus for a soft approach to Serbian CAA negotiations in the context of ICTY obligations. There may be progress soon on the Russian ban on Polish meat exports. EU President Commission Barroso make a one-day, un-publicized visit to Warsaw for lunch with PM Kaczynski, though we do not know the subject of the meeting. END SUMMARY. ¶2. (C) In the course of a February 9 meeting to discuss the U.S. pre-GAERC demarche (Ref A),MFA EU Department Deputy Director Pawel Herczynski told PolExt Chief that FM Fotyga had requested that from now on the monthly U.S. demarches be distributed formally to her, all of her deputies and all MFA department directors (A/S equivalents). Herczynski indicated that Fotyga personally reads over the pre-GAERC demarches very carefully, and that she had further requested that the U.S. texts be included henceforth as part of her personal briefing book for the GAERC meetings - a much more positive outcome than we had anticipated when Fotyga first asked Herczynski about our monthly demarches in late 2006. (See comment para 8.) ¶3. (C) With regard to the substance of the pre-GAERC demarche, Herczynski said that Poland had not yet completed internal consultations on its GAERC position, as FM Fotyga had convened a coordination meeting later that afternoon to take advantage of the presence in Warsaw of newly named Polish ambassador to the EU Jan Tombinski. However, Herczynski did not expect the Polish position to diverge from the U.S. views on any of the issues covered in Ref A, with one exception. (See para 5 below.) ¶4. (C) Herczynski noted that two issues from the planned GAERC agenda remained outstanding, requiring the PSC to meet yet again on the morning of February 9, with presumably a COREPER meeting that afternoon to ratify the PSC decision. The first issue involved UNSC 1737 enforcement, but was actually quite minor and technical: the Spanish and UK delegations continued their "traditional spat" over which government was responsible for sanctions enforcement in Gibraltar. ¶5. (C) The second open question at the morning PSC was how to deal with the proposal to reopen negotiations on the Cooperation and Association Agreement (CAA) with Serbia. Herczynski noted that there were two camps: the "like-minded group" of Poland, UK, Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands (Ref B) which favored a hard-line approach that would not restart the talks until Belgrade fulfilled its ICTY commitments; and the "softer ones" who favored opening talks and shifting the compliance requirement to the end of the CAA negotiation process. Herczynski said the GOP feared that the like-minded group was "shrinking" while the soft-liners were gaining support. Poland would stand on principle as was practical, but would not fall on its sword if the UK and others left it standing alone. ¶6. (C) With regard to the EU efforts to help Poland in resolving the Russian meat export ban problem, Herczynski confirmed that Russian and EU veterinary inspectors were on the ground in Poland conducting joint inspections of Polish meat packers and border checkpoints. He asserted, however, that the matter was entirely political. There would be no problem with the technical results of the inspection, but everything would depend on political will. Herczynski opined that everyone, including the Russians, was trying to find a way out of the meat ban, which meant that a solution might actually be possible. (N.B. We have heard separately from the Polish MinAg that the technical side of the two-week inspections - which started February 5 - would reveal no problems, and the Russian media reported that a second team would arrive February 19 to certify Polish phytosanitary procedures for produce and grain exports, which are also currently banned.) ¶7. (C) Herczynski shared one further interesting piece of WARSAW 00000316 002 OF 002 information. He said that Amb. Tombinski had returned to Warsaw only weeks after taking up his post in Brussels to attend a luncheon between PM Jarek Kaczynski and EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, who was apparently flying into Warsaw for a one-day, un-publicized visit Saturday, February 10. Herczynski said he was unable to share the purpose of the visit but made very clear that it was significant. ¶8. (C) COMMENT. FM Fotyga has clearly chosen to engage actively on EU matters. As reported Ref B, Fotyga gave Ambassador an unsolicited briefing on the January 22 GAERC, and her comments indicated she had read the U.S. demarche before participating in that meeting. When Fotyga had expressed several months ago an interest in our pre-GAERC demarches and asked to receive her own copies, we were unsure whether this indicated a substantive interest or a desire to impose more control on MFA interactions with us. To our surprise and relief, from the U.S. perspective she seems to have taken the best possible approach. Not only is the FM herself engaged, but our close cooperation with Herczynski has if anything increased since Fotyga first showed an interest. END COMMENT. HILLAS