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RUEHFR/AMEMBASSY PARIS
RUEHVJ/AMEMBASSY SARAJEVO
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHDC
RHMFISS/SACEUR SD SHAPE BE
RUEKJCS/CJCS WASHINGTON DC
RHMFITT/CDR USEUCOM VAIHINGEN GE

C O N F I D E N T I A L USEU BRUSSELS 001716 
 
NOFORN 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/07/2018 
TAGS: MARR MOPS MCAP EUN FI
SUBJECT: EU INFORMAL DEFMIN MEETING, DEAUVILLE, AND EU 
STRATEGIC PLANNING CAPABILITY: A FINNISH VIEW 
 
Classified By: USEU/POL M-C Chris Davis, for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d) 
 
¶1.  (C/NF) SUMMARY:  Finnish Defense Counselor (protect) 
discussed with USEU Defense Advisor the October 1 EU's 
Informal Defense Ministers' Meeting at Deauville, and a 
UK-France-Germany proposal for an EU crisis management and 
planning capability.  On capabilities, the French presidency 
views its capability goals as paramount.  They are: European 
Air Transport Fleet, helicopters, maritime counter-mine 
warfare, maritime aviation, military space activities, and 
the relationship between the EDA and OCCAR.  Ministers 
discussed, with the participation of the NATO Secretary 
General, the challenges of creating and maintaining 
multinational high-readiness forces and of generating the 
political will to use them.  The necessity of U.S. support 
for operations was also discussed.  Ministers reviewed 
current EU operations in Bosnia, Chad and off the coast of 
Somalia.  Finland supports a minimalist approach in Bosnia 
and will send troops to a UN operation in Chad.  Ministers 
drew no conclusions on the juridical challenges 
of anti-piracy operations.  Finally, our Finnish source was 
surprised that ministers did not take up a UK-FR-GE proposal 
to develop, under Council General Secretariat, a 
civil-military strategic planning structure, which he 
described in detail.  END SUMMARY 
 
--------------------------- 
Capabilities  la Franaise 
--------------------------- 
 
¶2.  (C/NF) Janne Kuusela (protect), Finnish Defense 
Counselor, reading from Finnish reporting cables, told us the 
Deauville meeting was unusually dynamic and interesting, not 
the normal recitation of goals.  The Chief Executive of the 
EDA, Alex Weis, made the initial presentation delineating 
European priorities derived from the Capability Development 
Plan.  Weis was then, according to Finnish reporting, 
humiliated by the French, who downplayed the EDA's effort and 
insisted that the capability goals of the French presidency 
were paramount.  The French made no mention of the Capability 
Development Plan's conclusions nor the fact that these same 
ministers had endorsed those conclusions previously.  The 
French cited their well-known preference for the European Air 
Transport Fleet (Kuusela was skeptical this would ever fly), 
helicopters, counter-mine warfare in the littoral waters of 
Europe, maritime aviation, military space activities, and the 
relationship between the EDA and OCCAR, the French hope being 
that the 
 latter would act as a procurement agency for the former. 
 
-------------------------------- 
Battlegroups:  Use it or lose it 
-------------------------------- 
 
¶3.  (C/NF) Kuusela described a robust and useful discussion 
at Deauville about the use of EU Battlegroups.  After the 
Finnish MoD's suggestion that the EU use its Battlegroups or 
lose them, the UK intervened to say that it agreed, but that 
HMG felt the EU should first discuss whether it ever intended 
to engage in major military operations.  The UK also pointed 
out the very useful transformational aspects of developing 
and establishing a Battlegroup.  Poland interjected that the 
Battlegroup is a Rolls-Royce of rapid reaction that is best 
kept in the garage until a sufficiently important operation 
warrants its use.  Romania said it preferred to get its 
transformational benefits from participation in NATO's NRF. 
France thought that the EuroCorps was too often overlooked 
for operations.  The Chairman of the EU Military Committee, 
French General Henri Bentgeat, then said that there are a 
great many multi-national formations not affiliated with the 
EU and that any discussion of their use must take NATO's need 
int 
o account as well.  Further, he said merely establishing a 
Battlegroup, especially if it is not used, is too costly as 
50% of the cost of a high-readiness unit is just in getting 
it ready.  Next, it was suggested that the Battlegroup fill 
the role as the EU's strategic reserve for operations. 
General Bentgeat felt that if the situation warranted the 
use of a Battlegroup, then the political will to employ it 
would be forthcoming.  The real problems of political will 
aside, the UK re-iterated the need for the transformational 
benefit in capability and mentality that come through the 
 
process of standing up a Battlegroup. 
 
---------------------------- 
The U.S. as Military Partner 
---------------------------- 
 
¶4.  (C/NF) According to the Finnish Defense Counselor, the 
NATO Secretary General, who for the first time attended the 
entire ministerial -- fulfilling a French proposal -- 
remarked that within NATO a similar discussion was under way 
with respect to the NRF.  Importantly, he reportedly 
challenged ministers by asking if Europe or NATO really 
contemplated conducting a significant military operation 
without the participation of the United States.  He said NATO 
could not employ the NRF without the U.S. wondering if the EU 
could employ a Battlegroup in an emergency without U.S. 
assistance.  General Bentgeat, reportedly noting the 
"wisdom" of the NATO Secretary General's words, discussed the 
lessons learned from the Nordic Battelgroup experience.  He 
cited the lack of lift and political will, and also the 
failure to agree on costs, noting that the EU has still not 
decided whether rapid reaction operations would be commonly 
funded. 
 
---------------- 
To Catch a Thief 
---------------- 
 
¶5.  (C/NF) Ministers also discussed a French proposal on 
maritime surveillance and evacuation (NFI) and were briefed 
on the French operation to rescue the crew of the private 
yacht seized off Somalia.  According to reporting from which 
Kuusela was reading, the French paid the ransom at sea and 
then using UAVs, helicopters, and other electronic means 
tracked the pirates to land at which point the apparently 
very numerous pirates split up and headed out in a great many 
directions, too many in fact for the French to follow and 
intercept.  The result was that most of the ransom money was 
lost and few of the pirates were apprehended. 
 
---------- 
Operations 
---------- 
 
¶6.  (C/NF) Somalia:  Kuusela related conversations among EU 
naval planners at the ministerial who first estimated the 
size of the EU's operational area as 300 square nautical 
miles, which all thought was well beyond the capacity of a 
few ships to patrol, given the small size of the pirate 
dinghies.  Then the estimate was raised to 500 square 
nautical miles to the chagrin of those present.  Ministers, 
he said, also discussed the well-known list of practical and 
juridical issues related to dealing with pirates without 
coming to any conclusions, to include the inability to put 
them ashore into the hands of a functioning police and 
judicial system in Somalia, and the difficulty of identifying 
them as pirates in the first place, since they usually claim 
to be well-armed fisherman. 
 
¶7.  (C/NF) Chad:  Relief by a UN operation is imperative, 
concluded ministers from six nations, including Finland, 
which promised to commit troops to a UN effort.  Kuusela said 
that current Finnish commitments to UN operations 
post-Lebanon needed to be increased and Finland was 
positioning itself for key positions in the UN hierarchy; 
therefore, offering Finnish troops to a new UN operation in 
Chad would have other benefits as well.  Now that the rainy 
season is coming to a close, he anticipated an increase in 
rebel and bandit activity, while remarking that "Sweden left 
us during the rainy season." 
 
¶8.  (C/NF) Bosnia:  Kuusela said Finland favors the least 
robust option of all those under consideration for reducing 
the size of the EU force in Bosnia, because of the resource 
drain of ALTHEA on other commitments.  Kuusela added that the 
consensus moved quickly in this direction. 
 
----------------------------- 
EU OHQ: In the Planning Stage 
----------------------------- 
 
¶9.  (C/NF) Kuusela next discussed a UK-FR-GE proposal on a 
 
structure for military strategic planning in Brussels that he 
had thought would be discussed in Deauville.  He reported 
that the discussion did not take place as planned, presumably 
because President Sarkozy considers the matter to be too 
important a decision for defense ministers, preferring to 
announce it at December's European Council meeting of Heads 
of State and Government. 
 
----------------- 
UK-French Win-Win 
----------------- 
 
¶10.  (C/NF) In laying out the proposal, Kuusela said that it 
had to be a tri-partite one in order to gain the necessary 
support, but that the Germans were merely bystanders. 
(COMMENT:  The original Battlegroup proposal was developed in 
a similar fashion with the French bringing the Germans in at 
the last minute END COMMENT)  Kuusela said the effort was to 
find a way forward in which the British, who did not object 
in principle to strategic or advanced planning at the 
European level, and the French, who want a stand-alone 
structure at the strategic level in Brussels, could find 
common ground.  The British proposed a comprehensive 
civilian-military center on the compound at SHAPE that could 
integrate the work of both the EU and NATO; a proposal 
Kuusela believed had U.S. support.  The French objected as 
this idea did not give France something in Brussels with a 
European label.  Kuusela's Finnish reporting said that a 
UK-French agreement was reached in mid-late September; 
however, the Elyse and Whitehall still disagree on some of 
the details.  The accord calls for a strategic 
military-civilian planning and coordination function, with an 
emphasis on coordination, under Javier Solana in the Council 
General Secretariat.  This mechanism is designed to produce 
rapid strategic assessments to inform the EU decision-making 
process in Brussels, while respecting the chain of command. 
The proposal would not add any new billets, personnel or 
structure in Brussels (presumably a win for the UK position), 
but would enable the EU to function more effectively as a 
unitary actor at the strategic political and strategic 
military levels within the EU (a win for France). 
 
-------------------------------------------- 
EU Crisis Management and Planning Capability 
-------------------------------------------- 
 
¶11.  (C/NF) Within the Secretariat and under Solana's Terms 
of Reference, the new structure will combine DG E VIII, 
Defense Aspects of ESDP, with DG E IX, Civilian Aspects of 
ESDP, with the EU Military Staff, the Civilian Planning and 
Conduct Capability (CPCC) and the Planning and Early Warning 
Unit.  According to our discussion with Kuusela, the new 
structure will lean heavily on the Situation Center (SitCen) 
and the relevant offices of the External Relations 
Directorate General of the European Commission.  The role of 
the NATO Permanent Liaison Team to the EU Military Staff in 
this arrangement is to be determined, as are permanent links 
to NATO's strategic planning staff.  This organization will 
also have a Deployable Augmentee Cadre, a body of experts 
that would detach itself in times of crisis to the 
responsible organization, for example, to a framework 
nation's Operational Headquarters (OHQ).  The Military 
Committee and the Civilian Committee will remain as advisory 
bodies according to their current functions. 
 
--------------------------- 
Wind in Sarkozy's NATO Sail 
--------------------------- 
 
¶12.  (C/NF) The UK does not see this as a fundamental change 
in the intent of having a Council General Secretariat for 
ESDP, but it will be a good way to put wind in the domestic 
political sails of Sarkozy to help steer him back into NATO. 
The French president will say, according to the Finns, that 
this is a physically small change but a giant mental leap 
forward. 
 
SILVERBERG 
 
.