GERMANY PASSES ON OPPORTUNITY TO WEIGH IN ON

C O N F I D E N T I A L BERLIN 001285 SIPDIS EEB/ESC/TFS FOR COULTER, NEA/IR FOR GROEN E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/18/2018 TAGS: ENRG EPET ETTC PREL HR PL IR GM SUBJECT: GERMANY PASSES ON OPPORTUNITY TO WEIGH IN ON POLISH AND CROATIAN GAS DEALS WITH IRAN REF: STATE 95257 Classified By: Global Affairs Unit Chief Don L. Brown for reasons 1.4 ( b) and (d) ¶1. (C) Summary: German MFA officials responsible for energy policy and Iran are reluctant to engage Poland and Croatia on their efforts to develop Iranian natural gas resources. They expressed a preference for United Nations action, as well as very keen interest in learning more about the responses to U.S. bilateral efforts aimed directly at Poland and Croatia on this subject. End Summary. ¶2. (C) Econoff met with MFA International Energy Policy officials Alexander Schoenfelder and Matthias Vollert. They stated that the best approach to limiting development of Iran's energy sector lies with the UN, adding that within the EU, there are too many different opinions about this topic for the EU to be effective. Schoenfelder also expressed concern that if the GOG were to pressure Poland, Poland would "push back." He opined that a fourth UN Security Council Resolution with minor sanctions against Iran's energy sector would be more effective than autonomous sanctions or Germany's applying pressure to other countries. Finally, he commented that a decision of whether to engage with Poland and Croatia would be taken only at a high level in the MFA, but added that any additional information from the U.S. on Poland's and / or Croatia's response to our bilateral efforts would be very useful to that decision making process. ¶3. (C) Separately, Iran Unit Chief Andreas Krueger told Poloff that he was uncertain that Germany would be the proper messenger to pressure Poland on gas-related issues. He added that additional information the USG could share regarding discussions thus far with the Polish government could bolster our request that Germany raise the Iranian gas issue. KOENIG