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 PARIS 000364 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR PM DAS SUCHAN, EUR/WE, AND EUR/ERA 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/19/2015 
TAGS: MARR ETTC PREL FR EUN
SUBJECT: EU-CHINA ARMS EMBARGO: LATEST FRENCH THINKING 
 
REF: A) 2004 PARIS 7015 B) 2004 PARIS 6853 C) 
 
     01/18/05 REIDHEAD-RECINOS E-MAIL 
 
Classified By: Political Minister-Counselor Josiah Rosenblatt, reason 1 
.4 B and D 
 
¶1. (C) Following recent EU discussions on lifting the EU arms 
embargo on China (ref C), we spoke with Jacques Maillard, MFA 
DAS-equivalent for export controls, with respect to French 
thinking on this issue.  Maillard said that the EU had 
already decided in December to lift the arms embargo by the 
end of the Luxembourg EU presidency and that consensus on a 
revised code of conduct had been reached at the same time, 
but that the UK had held up the final decision on a 
technicality, not on substance.  Since then, consensus was 
again emerging on the revised code of conduct, although it 
was a very slow, "snail-like" process.  Additionally, in 
response to our questions, Maillard said France was now 
prepared to accept the "toolbox," which was designed to 
increase the effectiveness of the code of conduct. He 
ventured that immediate progress on lifting the arms embargo 
was not imminent as the EU would need to discuss the issue at 
COREPER and other EU meetings.  Maillard, nonetheless, 
expressed confidence that the embargo would be lifted by the 
end of the "first trimester." 
 
¶2. (C) We again observed that lifting the embargo would 
increase arms sales to China and cited the January 19 front 
page Financial Times article, which talked about the increase 
(doubling) of EU arms sales licenses to China between 2002 
and 2003.  Maillard cautioned that approval of a license and 
the export of the approved material was quite different.  He 
noted that the value of approved French licenses in 2003 was 
171 million euros, but actual exports were only worth 16 
million euros.  In 2002, licenses were approved to the value 
of 150 million euros and actual exports totaled 10.8 million 
euros. 
 
¶3. (C) Comment: Maillard, like others in the EU, can be 
expected to continue to argue that the embargo has not been 
effective in controlling the export of lethal weapons and 
that the lifting of the embargo is inevitable.  They will use 
most arguments to justify this view, such as the one above 
that actual exports were smaller than the number of licenses 
granted.  While the numbers provided by Maillard for France 
are relatively small, we note that the increase in exports 
from 2002 to 2003 was still roughly 48 percent.  End comment. 
 
Wolff