This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 BRUSSELS 002068 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/14/2014 
TAGS: PREL MOPS MARR BK EUN NATO USEU BRUSSELS
SUBJECT: EU COUNCIL ON NATO-EU RELATIONS 
 
 
Classified By: USEU External Affairs Officer Andrew Erickson 
for reasons 1.5 (b) and (d). 
 
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Summary 
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¶1.  (C) EUR/RPM Director Dan Russell visited Brussels May 6-7 
to meet with EU Council Secretariat officials responsible for 
EU European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP) formulation. 
The primary topic of discussion was the transition in Bosnia 
from SFOR to a EU mission.  In all of his meetings, Russell 
drew upon the interagency-cleared guidance prepared for the 
May 5 PCG-PMG meeting on Bosnia.  Russell met with Council 
deputy director general for ESDP Pieter Feith and exchanged 
views on NATO-EU relations.  Council Secretariat planner 
Matthew Reece briefed Russell on the EU General Concept, and 
subsequently, Russell reviewed U.S. thinking on Bosnia with 
Council Defense Aspects Director Claude France Arnould.  EU 
officials expressed confidence that things are generally "on 
track" for Bosnia, although the Council continues to have 
concerns about the Dayton authorities, strategic reserve 
arrangements, and the delineation of tasks, primarily 
monitoring.  Finally, Russell met with EU Civilian Crisis 
Management Director Michael Matthiessen, and discussed the 
EU's military liaison with SHAPE with Major General 
Jean-Pierre Herreweghe, EU Military Chief of Staff. 
Herreweghe told Russell that the EUMS was staffing up its 
SHAPE liaison office, and would have approximately 10 
officers in place at SHAPE by early June.  These officers 
would also serve liaison roles at AFSOUTH and Sarajevo, as 
required.  End summary. 
 
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Council Secretariat 
- Feith and Arnould 
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¶2.  (C) EUR/RPM Russell met May 6th with the Council 
Secretariat Deputy Director General for ESDP, Peiter Feith. 
 
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Feith reviewed the current EU state of play on Bosnia with 
Russell, underscoring his view that things were going well. 
There continued to be some unease in the EU Political and 
Security Committee (PSC) about NATO's lead role in detaining 
PIFWCs; Feith suggested that PSC ambassadors be briefed 
(ideally during their next trip to SHAPE) in order to better 
understand the way that PIFWCs are currently addressed in 
Bosnia.  Russell took Feith's suggestion under advisement, 
and agreed to follow up with SHAPE to see if something could 
be done to put the PSC in the comfort zone on this issue. 
One key point to emphasize, said Russell, was that NATO is 
simply seeking to protect an on-going program, not carve out 
something from EU control.  Feith responded that there was a 
real need to educate the PSC on this point.  On NATO's 
counterterrorism role, Feith expressed satisfaction with 
Russell's explanation of the U.S. position. 
 
¶3.  (C) Next Russell met with Council Secretariat Defense 
Aspects Director Claude France Arnould, who reviewed EU 
concerns about control of strategic reserves in the event of 
a major conflagration in Bosnia following an EU takeover. 
Arnould's concerns seemed to be based upon a 
military-theological fixation with worst-case scenarios. 
Russell noted that outstanding reserve questions needed to be 
addressed and suggested that the U.S. was taking a pragmatic 
approach to planning.  In general, he suggested that there 
was a need to establish a framework and then let military 
commanders work out the best approach to practical problems 
at the military-to-military level in the field.  Politics 
simply complicated the pragmatic solutions required for a 
successful transition in Bosnia.  On the Dayton authorities, 
Arnould suggested that the EU might require a new SOFA to 
meet its legal needs.  Russell, noting that neither he nor 
Arnould were lawyers, stated the SOFA embedded in Dayton 
offered the best terms and the U.S. opposed reopening Dayton. 
 Arnould agreed that the embedded SOFA offered the right 
terms, but continued to insist that the EU may need a new 
SOFA. 
 
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Bosnia General Concept 
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¶4.  (C) Matthew Reece, Defense Aspects Planner, briefed 
Russell on the EU's General Concept for Bosnia, recently 
endorsed by the EU Council.  Reece was principally 
responsible for drafting the general concept.  In particular, 
Reece underscored three concerns for the EU as it moved 
towards a possible operation in Bosnia: 
-- NATO's responsibility for PIFWCs; 
-- the significance of NATO's retention of a role in the war 
on terror; and, 
-- the necessity to go to the NAC for a decision to mobilize 
strategic reserves for an EU-led Bosnia Operation under 
Berlin Plus. 
 
¶5.  (C) Russell pushed back hard on all three points.  It was 
a misunderstanding of NATO's position to say that its 
continued PIFWCs role was undercutting the EU; it was merely 
preserving the current approach to the problem.  Regarding 
counter terrorism, NATO did have a vital role to play, which 
did not threaten the EU.   Finally, reserve issues obviously 
remained to be worked out, but the EU needed to understand 
that a decision to draw on NATO strategic reserves -- 
following a process that would have already entailed bringing 
considerable operational reserves into play -- would 
absolutely require a NATO decision.  NATO, of course, had the 
final voice in the dispensation of its own resources.  Reece 
also took the opportunity to discuss the Dayton authorities 
and the delineation of tasks.  In response to Russell's point 
that both EUFOR and the post-SFOR NATO force would require 
full Dayton authorities, Reece expressed concern that the EU 
should have the lead on monitoring.  Most of his concerns on 
Dayton focused on making clear EUFOR's lead role in Bosnia. 
 
 
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EUMS Liaison at SHAPE 
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¶6.  (C) On May 7, Russell met with Major General Jean-Pierre 
Herreweghe, EU Military Staff (EUMS) Chief of Staff (COS). 
Herreweghe expressed confidence that planning for Bosnia was 
proceeding in good order, although he was unwilling to 
express full confidence that the EU force generation process 
would be successful.  Solana's plan was to hold an "informal" 
force generation conference first to try to get an idea of 
the forces that might be available, and the shortfalls 
needing to be addressed.  After Istanbul -- and a formal NATO 
decision -- a formal process would begin, leading first to a 
CONOPS that could then lead to force generation. 
 
¶7.  (C) Herreweghe told Russell that the EUMS currently had 
three officers serving in the liaison cell at SHAPE; these 
officers were holdovers from the EU's "Operation Concordia". 
Herreweghe said that he is now sending five more officers to 
SHAPE, and said that these officers would be in place in the 
coming weeks.  His goal by early June, he told Russell, would 
be to have 10 officers staffing the SHAPE liaison cell full 
time.  On the question of seconding EUMS officers to AFSOUTH 
and Sarajevo, he said that this would be inappropriate, given 
the fact that SHAPE would be the EU's OHQ for the Bosnia 
Operation.  For the EUMS to send liaison officers to AFSOUTH 
and Sarajevo would be to second-guess the OHQ at SHAPE, he 
said.  For this reason, it was the EUMS liaison office at 
SHAPE that would determine coverage of AFSOUTH Naples and 
Sarajevo, and the officers would be rotated from the EUMS 
liaison cell at SHAPE for these jobs. 
 
¶8.  (C) Russell noted that another key issue was NATO and 
U.S. facilities in Bosnia, and the need for the EU to make a 
determination about what it would need.  Herreweghe responded 
that he was going to see EUCOM General Wald on Monday May 10 
at Wald's request in Stuttgart; he expected that EUCOM's need 
for more rapid EU planning on what facilities it would take 
over from NATO might be on Wald's agenda.  Herreweghe 
reiterated the General Concept's position that EUFOR planned 
to initially deploy to SFOR's existing headquarters. 
 
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Civilian Crisis Management 
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¶9.  (C) Finally, Russell reviewed the EU's civilian crisis 
management with Michael Matthiessen, director of the civilian 
crisis management cell of the EU.  Matthiessen reviewed the 
EU's police headline goal, of 5,000 police officers of whom 
up to 1,400 can be deployed in under 30 days.  Matthiessen 
underscored that the focus of the EU's police missions was 
non-executive policing; in other words, enhancing the 
capacities of national/local police forces to improve their 
own policing.  Currently the EU was fielding police missions 
in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia, and was deploying to the 
Congo in a follow-on mission to EU autonomous ESDP operation 
"Artemis".  Regarding the police/gendarmie elements available 
to the EU's possible military operation in Bosnia, 
Matthiessen noted that such forces (called "IPU"s -- in EU 
parlance, for "integrated police units", the equivalent of 
NATO "MSU"s or "multinational specialized units") were 
integrated with the military; this integration was their 
great advantage in post-crisis deployment. 
 
¶10.  (C) Responding to a question from Russell on the EU's 
police role in Afghanistan, Matthiessen noted that there had 
been considerable German opposition to an EU police role in 
Afghanistan for some time.  It was SRSG Francesco Vendrell's 
call for an EU police advisor that had weakened German 
resistance to the idea of an EU role in this sector.  The 
Germans were now considering how to develop an EU presence in 
Afghan policing, perhaps with Germany as lead nation.  The 
Italians, Matthiessen reported without offering specifics, 
were interested in "a more ambitious approach". 
Comment 
¶11.  (C) The consistent message from the EU Council 
Secretariat officials on Bosnia was that things are on the 
 
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right track, although some concerns remain, notably on 
reserves and the Dayton authorities.  Herreweghe's report on 
progress towards EUMS liaison at SHAPE, if confirmed by 
events, is good news, and shows that the EU is beginning to 
get things moving in the right direction. 
 
Foster