FRENCH PREVIEW OF DECEMBER FOREIGN AFFAIRS COUNCIL

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 PARIS 001653

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/07/2019
TAGS: PREL EUN SO BK MK IS WE IR UP BO MD GG AM
AJ, FR
SUBJECT: FRENCH PREVIEW OF DECEMBER FOREIGN AFFAIRS COUNCIL

REF: EUR/ERA EMAIL - 12/04/09

Classified By: Political Minister-Counselor Kathy Allegrone, Reasons 1.
4 (b),(d).


1. (SBU) On December 7, Mathieu Carmona, MFA Deputy Director
for EU Common Foreign and Security Policy, provided the
following preview for the December 7-8 Foreign Affairs
Council meeting of EU foreign ministers:

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DINNER WITH LADY ASHTON
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2. (SBU) Carmona mentioned that the December 7 dinner would
give foreign ministers their first opportunity for a
substantive meeting with Lady Ashton, the newly chosen EU
High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy,
and would largely be devoted to discussing how to move
forward on a plan to create the EU External Action Service
for presentation to heads of state by April. Carmona pointed
out that, as per the agreed upon process for entry into force
of the Lisbon Treaty, the Swedes will continue to chair this
final Foreign Affairs Council (FAC) under their presidency,
with Ashton chairing the meetings starting in January.

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SOMALIA
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3. (SBU) Carmona said the FAC will launch an EU effort to
train troops from the Somali Transitional Federal Government
in cooperation with Uganda. For the French, this is an
extension of their bilateral training efforts in Djibouti,
which are drawing to a close, and Carmona said around 30
French trainers currently in Djibouti would be transferred to
Uganda to form the French contribution to the EU training
effort.

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WESTERN BALKANS
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4. (C) Now that it has been decided to transform the EU's
Operation Althea in Bosnia to a training mission for Bosnian
security forces, EU foreign ministers will discuss a time
line for doing so. According to Carmona, France hopes to
start detailed discussions on implementing the transfer in
the spring, although he said the UK and Slovakia are pressing
to hold off until after Bosnian parliamentary and
presidential elections in autumn 2010. On the Butmir
process, Carmona said France has noted little progress
recently, though he added that France does not support the
separation of posts of High Representative and the EU Special
Representative in Bosnia, since this would separate political
power from the resources of the EU. On Macedonia, Carmona
said he believed that Greece would block the Council from
setting a date to begin the EU accession process during its
December 10 meeting.

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MIDDLE EAST PEACE
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5. (C) Carmona said member states were still discussing the
controversial statement proposed by the Swedish presidency on
the Middle East peace process. He said France was arguing
for a short text stressing the message that the EU supports
restarting negotiations and offering EU support in the form
of security guarantees in the West Bank if the two sides are
able to reach agreement. Carmona said the Swedish text was
very pessimistic, adding "if we wanted to list everything
that was blocking the peace process, we would have a very
long text, and the longer a text is, the more controversial
it becomes." He added that the Swedish text contained
language citing "East Jerusalem" as the capital of a
Palestinian state, and said that this was not only
unacceptable to France, but was contrary to the traditional
diplomatic phrase citing "Jerusalem" as the future capital of
Israel and an independent Palestinian state. Carmona said
that, given the existing EU consensus on this latter
formulation, he expects something similar to appear in the
statement.

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IRAN
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6. (C) Carmona said that the FAC would approve draft language

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on Iran to be appended to the December 10 European Council
statement. He said that negotiations on the text were
ongoing, but that as of the morning of December 7, wording
was emerging that France found encouraging. France, together
with the United Kingdom and Germany, is pushing for a Council
statement tasking EU foreign ministers to start preparing for
the possibility of new sanctions, although Carmona stressed
that the statement will not give a "rushed" timeline and will
mention that the offer of negotiations is still open to Iran.
Carmona repeated that, to maintain EU unity, a UN Security
Council resolution would be ideal.

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EASTERN PARTNERSHIP
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7. (C) The first ministerial meeting between EU member states
and the six Eastern Partnership countries (Ukraine, Belarus,
Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan) will be held on
the margins of the FAC. Carmona said the objective of the
meeting will be to express political support for establishing
concrete projects in the context of the four "thematic
platforms" established by the EU for the Eastern Partnership:
democracy and good governance, economic integration, energy
security, and contacts between peoples. The Commission, with
Council oversight, will then do much of the work to formulate
and execute specific projects. Carmona said one key question
was whether Ashton would gain control over the Eastern
Partnership, as the new EU Commissioner for Enlargement,
Czech Stefan Fuele, also has formal responsibility for the
"neighborhood policy," under which the Eastern Partnership
has traditionally fallen. France wants Ashton to have
maximum control over neighborhood policy. However, Carmona
suspects Commission President Barroso will fight this so he
can leverage Ashton's dual hat as Commission vice-president
(and therefore theoretically under Barroso's authority) by
positioning himself as arbiter in any policy dispute between
Fuele and Ashton.
RIVKIN