US embassy cable - 03ROME4907

C O N F I D E N T I A L  ROME 004907 
 
SIPDIS 
 
 
DEPT FOR EUR/ERA, EUR/RPM, EUR/WE 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/28/2013 
TAGS: PREL, IT, ESDP, EUN, NATO 
SUBJECT: STRUCTURED COOPERATION: NEW VARIATIONS FROM 
ITALY'S EU PRESIDENCY 
 
 
Classified By: AMBASSADOR SEMBLER.  REASON: 1.5 (B)(D) 
 
Guidance request.  See para 7. 
 
1. (C) SUMMARY. Senate President Pera told Ambassador Sembler 
on October 28 that Italy is discussing with other EU partners 
a new concept on structured cooperation which would have the 
IGC at 25 endorse structured cooperation as a concept.  It 
would also delegate to the major European military powers the 
authority to plan and/and carry out military operations.  The 
Ambassador emphasized that such a structure would be 
inconsistent with Berlin plus.  END SUMMARY. 
 
2. (C)  On October 28, Ambassador Sembler, accompanied by DCM 
and POL Minister-Counselor, hosted a lunch for Senate 
President Marcello Pera and two advisors.  Pera had requested 
the meeting to talk about the EU's deliberations in the 
Intergovernmental Conference on structured cooperation for 
European defense and security.  Pera relayed a variation on 
this concept that we had not heard before.  He said that he 
had been appraised of this new formula by Foreign Minister 
Frattini who had called him the previous evening to summarize 
ongoing talks among Italy, UK, France and Germany. 
 
3. (C) The proposal as Frattini explained it to Pera would 
have the IGC at 25 endorse structured cooperation as a 
mechanism.  It would also delegate to the major European 
military powers - UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, probably 
Poland and perhaps the Netherlands - the authority to plan 
and carry out military operations.  This would not 
necessarily be achieved by naming specific countries, but 
rather be done indirectly by conferring membership in the 
core group on countries that had a certain number of men 
under arms, level of capabilities, or some other objective 
measure that only certain nations could meet.  (This is the 
first time Embassy has heard that use of force could be 
authorized by anything other than consensus at 25.)  Pera and 
his advisors were uncertain if the smaller group would 
require consensus among its members or a qualified majority 
vote (QMV) within the group for a decision. 
 
4. (C) Pera was curious as to what changed UK Prime Minister 
Blair's pledge to stand firm against structured cooperation. 
It would be very difficult, Pera emphasized, for Italy to 
stand up and oppose any proposal that the UK had agreed with 
Germany and France. Pera noted the pressure Italy is under -- 
domestically and within the EU -- to craft an acceptable 
outcome in the IGC before the end of the year.  He said that 
giving a prominent role to Spain and Poland may be a means to 
get them to relent on their hard stance on voting weights. 
Pera wondered if the UK shifting its position on structured 
cooperation should be taken as an indication that Washington 
was comfortable with the concept of structured cooperation in 
general and the variation described by Frattini. 
 
5. (C) The Ambassador, DCM and POL Minister Counselor 
explained to Pera that the USG has deep reservations about 
structured cooperation, which could undercut Berlin-plus. 
The US is frustrated that many EU members are devoting more 
energy into finding ways to bypass Berlin-plus than to 
strengthening it.  The ideas seen thus far, including this 
one, are duplicative of, and potentially competitive with 
NATO.  The Ambassador emphasized that the formal response to 
structured cooperation is still under discussion in 
Washington, but reiterated that if the EU insists on 
including a reference to structured cooperation in the 
constitution, then it should: 
 
- not include a mutual defense clause; 
 
- not propose separate EU planning HQ (Tervuren); 
 
- preserve the principle of EU-wide consensus on decisions to 
use military force; 
 
- be open to non-EU NATO members and non-NATO EU members; 
 
- generally reaffirm Berlin plus. 
 
6. (C) Emboffs said that the latest version as described by 
Frattini did not seem to reflect an improvement from the US 
standpoint.  If the EU permanently delegated operations 
decisions to a subgroup that could make decisions by less 
than unanimity, it might be worse than other variations. 
That would be inconsistent with Berlin plus and ignore the 
above points, which we have been emphasizing throughout EU 
 
 
capitals and in Brussels for months. 
 
7. (C) Comment and guidance request:  Pera is not in the 
Executive Branch, but he's a key leader of the coalition and 
a trusted friend of the US.  He was not merely floating 
Frattini's ideas to register our reaction.  He genuinely 
wants the EU to make the right decisions on ESDP vis a vis 
NATO.  He will relay the Embassy reaction to the latest 
proposal to Frattini and PM Berlusconi.  Post would 
appreciate more definitive guidance from Washington to make 
clear directly to the PM and FM our stand on structured 
cooperation, as well as US reaction should the EU go down the 
path Frattini described to Pera.  Embassy Rome would also be 
interested in hearing whether other posts have heard similar 
descriptions of the state of play on structured cooperation 
in the IGC from their interlocutors. 
SEMBLER 
 
 
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 2003ROME04907 - Classification: CONFIDENTIAL