US embassy cable - 04BRUSSELS3320

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 BRUSSELS 003320 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR EUR/ERA, EUR/RPM 
 
E.O.: 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV, PREL, PINR, EUN, USEU BRUSSELS 
SUBJECT: EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT: THE NEW FOREIGN 
AFFAIRS COMMITTEE 
 
 
1. (U) Summary:  The new European Parliament (EP) 
Foreign Affairs Committee will be the largest EP 
committee, with 78 members.  The Committee is 
responsible for drafting reports and making 
recommendations on Common Foreign and Security 
Policy (CFSP) topics, European Security and Defense 
Policy (ESDP), enlargement of the EU, international 
agreements, and relations with other international 
organizations.  Although the EP does not enjoy much 
decision-making power in these areas compared to 
other EU policy areas, such as transport or the 
environment, the Foreign Affairs Committee remains 
one of the most prestigious of the EP's committees, 
and routinely attracts the largest number of 
applicants.  Two newly created subcommittees -- one 
on human rights, the other on security and defense - 
- will assist the main committee.  Elmar Brok, a 
German MEP from the center-right EPP-ED, will remain 
Committee chairman.  End Summary. 
 
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ROLE AND COMPETENCES 
-------------------- 
 
2. (U) The EP Foreign Affairs Committee, with 78 
members, will remain the largest EP committee. 
According to the EP's rules of procedure, the 
Committee is responsible for the following issues: 
CFSP and ESDP, on which it will be assisted by a 
newly created subcommittee for security and defense; 
relations with the UN and other international 
organizations; the strengthening of political 
relations with third countries through cooperation 
and assistance programs or international agreements 
such as association and partnership agreements; 
opening, monitoring, and concluding EU accession 
negotiations; and questions relating to human 
rights, the protection of minorities, and the 
promotion of democratic values in third countries, 
on which the Committee will be assisted by the new 
subcommittee on human rights. 
 
3. (U) The EP does not have much formal decision- 
making power in most foreign policy areas, 
especially defense and security matters; EU member 
states, meeting as the Council, often ignore the 
EP's opinion.  However, over the years, the EP has 
at times used its few available instruments -- such 
as the requirement for EP assent to Association 
Agreements with third countries and EP control over 
the EU budget -- to exert some influence in this 
area. 
 
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THE MOST POPULAR COMMITTEE 
-------------------------- 
 
4. (U) Even with such limited legislative power, the 
Foreign Affairs Committee has always been considered 
the most prestigious committee in the EP, with the 
largest number of applications for membership. 
BACKGROUND:  Once elected, MEPs rank their 
preferences for committee and delegation 
assignments.  Not all MEPs, however, become members 
of their "first choice" committee, as committee and 
delegation memberships are assigned among the 
political groups according to the size of the 
groups.  Ensuring balanced representation from 
political groups and nationalities on all of the 
various committees is a difficult exercise.  Harsh 
negotiating is usual inside each political group -- 
both between member-state delegations and between 
individual MEPs -- for membership nominations and 
for leadership positions (chairman, vice-chairman 
and political group coordinator.) END BACKGROUND. 
 
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WHO'S WHO IN THE NEW COMMITTEE 
------------------------------- 
 
5. (U) The Committee held its constitutive meeting 
on July 22 in Strasbourg and elected its chairman 
and vice-chairmen by acclamation.  Since the 
political group leaders negotiate committee 
chairmanships in advance, the election is usually 
only a procedural action with one candidate per 
position to be filled.  The committee leaders and 
political group coordinators are (with the exception 
of the Socialist coordinator, who has not yet been 
appointed): 
 
-- Elmar Brok (Germany, EPP-ED), Chairman:  After 
receiving a degree in law and politics, Brok worked 
briefly as a journalist but quickly moved into 
politics.  An "old-timer" among MEPs despite being 
only 58, Brok has been in office since 1979 and was 
the Committee's chairman during the last 
parliamentary term.  He also was (and will almost 
certainly remain) the EPP coordinator for 
institutional issues -- he was an active participant 
in the Convention on the Future of Europe and one of 
the "EP envoys" to the Inter-Governmental Conference 
that negotiated the EU Constitutional Treaty.  His 
flamboyant and direct style leaves no one 
indifferent in the EP.  Like most German Christian- 
Democrat MEPs, Brok describes himself as an ally of 
the U.S. -- despite frequent criticism of U.S. 
"unilateralism" and his opposition to U.S. positions 
on Guantanamo, the ICC, the Kyoto Protocol, and the 
death penalty. 
 
-- Geoffrey Van Orden (UK, EPP-ED), First Vice 
Chairman:  A retired Brigadier General, 59-year-old 
Van Orden held senior positions at NATO and in the 
European Commission before being elected to the EP 
as a member of the British Conservative Party.  He 
was Vice-Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee 
in the previous Parliament and is a specialist in 
defense issues.  Van Orden, who has worked closely 
with the Mission, is among NATO's strongest 
advocates in the EP. 
 
-- Toomas-Hendrik Ilves (Estonia, PES), Second Vice 
Chairman:  Ilves, 49, grew up in the United States 
and spent much of his adult life there.  He studied 
psychology at Columbia University and then later 
headed Radio Free Europe's Estonian service from 
Munich.  He renounced his U.S. citizenship soon 
after Estonia regained independence and became 
Estonian Ambassador to the U.S. in 1993, followed by 
accreditation to Canada as well in 1994.  From 1999- 
2002, he was Estonia's foreign minister, playing a 
key role in negotiating Estonia's accession to the 
EU.  He became an EP observer for his country in 
2003.  Ilves declared in a recent interview that he 
hopes to revise the EU's "naive" policy toward 
Russia and also to focus on European security 
policy, especially terrorism. 
 
-- Baroness Emma Nicholson (UK, ALDE), Third Vice- 
Chairman:  A trained musician and computer designer, 
Emma Nicholson, 63, was also long active in the Save 
the Children fund.  She was the Vice-Chairman of the 
Conservative Party before quitting to join the 
Liberal Democrats in 1995. She has been a Life Peer 
and member of the British House of Lords since 1997. 
A close contact of USEU, Nicholson was the EP 
rapporteur on Iraq and voiced strong support for 
U.S. military action.  However, she introduced an 
ongoing source of transatlantic friction when she 
lionized the "Romanian adoption scandal" that led to 
the moratorium on international adoption from 
Romania. 
 
-- Jose Ignacio Salafranca (Spain, EPP-ED), EPP-ED 
coordinator:  A professor of European law, 
Salafranca was elected to the EP in 1994.  He 
retains his position as the Committee's EPP-ED 
coordinator and has since 2001 also been the EPP-ED 
spokesman in the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. 
Salafranca, 49, is a specialist in Latin American 
issues and, in addition to representing the EP at 
the last two EU-Latin America Summits, he was 
responsible for EP reports on EU-Latin America 
relations, Association Agreements with Chile and 
Mexico, and the Andean community.  He proved a good 
contact of the Mission during the last Parliamentary 
term. 
 
-- Armin Laschet (Germany, EPP-ED), EPP-ED 
coordinator:  A lawyer, journalist, and publisher, 
Laschet launched his political career in Germany in 
the nineties, becoming a member of the Bundestag in 
1994 and being elected to the EP in 1999. 
Particularly interested in the UN (he is a member of 
the executive council of the German United Nations 
Society), he was appointed in 2003 to draft the EP 
report on EU-UN relations. 
 
-- Annemie Neyts (Belgium, ALDE), ALDE coordinator: 
A French teacher in Flanders, the 60-year-old Neyts 
began her political career at a young age, rising 
through the Flemish Liberal Party (VLD).  She became 
the party's chairman for the Brussels region in 
1995.  Belgium's Minister of Trade during the late- 
2001 Belgian EU Presidency, she presided over the EU 
Council during the Doha trade talks. She was an MEP 
from 1994 to 1999, prior to her ministerial post. 
Neyts recently attended the U.S. Democratic 
Convention in Boston, invited by Madeleine Albright. 
 
6. (U) In addition to these key MEPs, the 
Committee's many high-profile members include former 
Lithuanian President Vytautas Landsbergis (EPP-ED); 
three former prime ministers -- Denmark's Poul Nyrup 
Rasmussen (current leader of the European 
Socialists), France's Michel Rocard (PES), and 
Italy's Massimo D'Alema (PES); and four former 
foreign ministers -- Finland's Paavo Vayrynen 
(ALDE), the Czech Republic's Josef Zieleniec (EPP- 
ED), Cyprus' Ioannis Kasoulides (EPP-ED), and 
Luxembourg's Lydie Polfer (ALDE). Other prominent 
figures include two former European Commissioners, 
Italian Emma Bonino (ALDE) and Portuguese Joao de 
Deus Pinheiro (EPP-ED); German Greens leader 
Angelika Beer; and Philippe Morillon (France, EPP- 
ED), former commander of UN forces in Bosnia. 
 
SAMMIS