US embassy cable - 05THEHAGUE48

C O N F I D E N T I A L THE HAGUE 000048 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/01/2015 
TAGS: PREL, PHUM, NL, CU, EUN 
SUBJECT: NETHERLANDS/CUBA: DUTCH HOPE FOR RESULTS FROM NEW 
COMMON APPROACH 
 
REF: STATE 4900 
 
Classified By: Acting Political Counselor Nathaniel Dean for reasons 1. 
4 (b) and (d). 
 
1.  (C)  Although no longer in their EU Presidency role, the 
Dutch will not play spoiler but will continue to work for a 
consensus EU policy toward Cuba.  This task is made difficult 
by the fact that there remains a wide range of opinions among 
EU partners, according to Jan Jaap Groenemeyer (MFA, Cuba 
Desk) with whom Poloff shared reftel points on January 10. 
Groenemeyer reported that the Netherlands delegation at the 
COLAT meeting in Brussels January 11 will join work on a 
draft Ministerial decision that, as expected, would relax the 
EU's current restrictive measures.  The EU would then be 
"anxious to see results on the Cuba side," and they would 
give a six month deadline for positive Cuban actions. 
Groenemeyer promised to take reftel's new suggestions to the 
COLAT meeting and bring them to the attention of the 
Presidency. (Groenemeyer's boss, Marianne Kappeyen van de 
Coppello, MFA, Director of Western Hemisphere Affairs, had 
just returned to the office and would consider the USG 
suggestions before COLAT, he said.) 
 
2.  (C)  Groenemeyer recalled that the December COLAT "was a 
very heavy meeting." It will be difficult for the EU to 
change the proposed policy too much now since it was a "real 
compromise of the widest range of points of view, which lay 
very far apart at the beginning."  He added that "it is very 
clear that the EU needs a new Cuba policy" and "one that is 
united."  Poloff retorted that "it is critical for the EU and 
the USG to be as united as possible on Cuba" and emphasized 
that we remained very skeptical about the changes the EU 
seemed about to adopt.  Groenemeyer agreed the EU and USG 
should work together, while observing that EU and USG 
cooperation does not necessarily mean we would adopt exactly 
the same tactics or policies.  He would expect the EU to be 
the softer foil to the USG's unchanging hard line.  "If we 
are perceived as getting too close to the US then the Cubans 
put us back to zero,"  he said. 
 
3.  (C)  Having held the Cuba account for almost eight years, 
he observed that staff changes among bureaucrats in Brussels 
and in national capitals regularly inspired so-called "fresh 
thinking" on Cuba, such as now, but "Cuba always seems to 
negatively surprise us."   Still, the EU seems determined to 
move ahead on a new approach, he said.  He noted that the 
Netherlands continues to represent the Presidency in Havana, 
where the EU will work on how to "fill out contacts with 
dissidents." 
SOBEL