US embassy cable - 05MADRID724

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 MADRID 000724 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/23/2015 
TAGS: PREL, PGOV, PTER, CVIS, SP, Counterterrorism, American - Spanish Relations 
SUBJECT: CHARGE'S MEETING WITH VICE PRESIDENT 
 
REF: A. A) MADRID 666 
 
     B. B) MADRID 568 
     C. C) MADRID 696 
 
Classified By: Charge d'Affaires Bob Manzanares; reasons 1.4 (B) and (D 
). 
 
1. (C) Summary.  Charge met with Spanish Vice President Maria 
Teresa Fernandez de la Vega on 2/22 for a review of 
U.S.-Spain relations and to discuss USG security, consular, 
and commercial priorities in Spain.  Charge congratulated de 
la Vega on her government's success in obtaining a good 
turnout and a positive result in the EU's first referendum on 
the EU Constitution.  He thanked the Vice President for 
Spain's participation in a PRT in western Afghanistan and 
urged Spain to lift its caveats on the participation of 
Spanish NATO officers in NATO operations in Iraq.  De la Vega 
said that the Zapatero government would meet its obligations 
in both Afghanistan and Iraq, but made it clear that Zapatero 
will remain "consistent" with respect to barring the 
participation of Spanish forces in Iraq.  On counterterrorism 
cooperation, de la Vega welcomed Charge's support for visits 
to Washington by Spain's Interior and Justice ministers and 
discussed Spanish efforts to tighten its terrorism finance 
laws.  She urged high-level USG participation in upcoming 
commemoration of the Madrid March 11 train bombings, saying 
that attendance below cabinet level would be cast as USG 
insensitivity in the Spanish press.  Charge briefed de la 
Vega on USG biometric passport requirements, criteria for 
Visa Waiver Program participation, and USG willingness to 
discuss sharing visa lookout information with Spanish 
authorities.  Charge also discussed U.S. commercial 
priorities, including our concerns with an apparent Spanish 
shift away from a science-based approach on biotech products 
and our readiness to work with Spain to raise awareness on 
intellectual property protection issues. 
 
2. (C) This was a good initial meeting with Vice President de 
la Vega, who appears to wield considerable influence, both as 
Vice President and as coordinator of the Council of 
Ministers.  She has a reputation as a tough, hard working 
politician with particular expertise in judicial issues. 
Though like many of the current set of Socialist leaders de 
la Vega is unfamiliar with the U.S., she was friendly and 
seemed well disposed to be a helpful interlocutor. End 
Summary. 
 
3. (C) Since Zapatero took office, Vice President de la Vega 
has emerged as an activist leader both in the public 
spotlight and behind the scenes.  She has taken on tough 
issues, such as the Basque problem and mobilizing an 
apathetic public to participate in the referendum on the 
European Constitution.  She has not assumed a leading role on 
foreign policy issues, leaving that arena to Zapatero and 
Foreign Minister Moratinos, but she has an indirect influence 
on a wide range of issues and frequently meets with Zapatero. 
 We sought a meeting with de la Vega in order to establish a 
working channel with the key day-to-day manager of the 
Zapatero administration and to provide her a sense of USG 
objectives in Spain. 
 
4. (C) Charge began by noting the excellent communication the 
Embassy enjoys with Spanish counterparts and thanking the GOS 
for its recent steps to improve bilateral ties.  He 
congratulated de la Vega for Zapatero's effort to get out the 
vote for the referendum on the European Constitution (ref A). 
 De la Vega described the vote as a symbol that Spain would 
be a permanent member of a club that seemed impossibly out of 
reach during the Franco dictatorship.  She said the 
overwhelming "yes" vote in support of the Constitution was 
the least Spain could do to support an institution that had 
transformed Spain in just 30 years. 
 
//AFGHANISTAN, IRAQ// 
 
5. (C) De la Vega welcomed the visit to Europe of President 
Bush, whom she lauded for emphasizing "the issues that unite 
us."  Charge expressed appreciation for Spain's leadership of 
a PRT in Afghanistan.  De la Vega said that Spain understood 
its obligation to help rebuild Afghanistan.  Charge urged de 
la Vega to follow up by lifting Spain's bar on the 
participation of Spanish officers assigned to NATO billets in 
NATO operations in Iraq.  De la Vega replied that "Iraq is 
not Afghanistan" and, while Spain would do all it could in 
the rebuilding of Iraq, the Zapatero government intended to 
"remain consistent" regarding its position on Spanish 
military deployment to Iraq.  She said that the Spanish MFA, 
MOD, and Ministry of Interior would be working together to 
provide training (in Spain) for Iraqi judicial and security 
officials. 
 
//COUNTER-TERRORISM COOPERATION// 
 
6. (C) Charge said the USG was very pleased with the 
excellent level of cooperation between Embassy security 
officials and their Spanish counterparts.  He said we had 
conveyed to the Department the interest of Minister of 
Interior Alonso and Justice Minister Aguilar in visiting 
Washington for counter-terrorism discussions and that we 
hoped to arrange such visits now that their USG counterparts 
were in place.  De la Vega thanked Charge for the Embassy's 
support, noting that Spanish authorities had great expertise 
in dealing with ETA, but needed to exchange as much 
information as possible with the USG on the new threat posed 
by Islamic extremists, for the good of both countries. 
 
7. (C) De la Vega cited Spain's success against ETA's 
finances as an example of a useful anti-terrorism tool that 
needed to be updated to confront the al-Qaida threat.  Charge 
agreed, saying that while Spain had a very good terrorism 
financing law on the books, such laws would be greatly 
strengthened once the Interior Ministry developed 
implementing legislation.  De la Vega, who served as Deputy 
Minister of Justice during the Felipe Gonzalez presidency, 
said the Zapatero government was evaluating whether changes 
would need to be made to the existing law to take into 
account the increased need for international coordination on 
terrorism financing and the emerging link between organized 
crime and terrorism.  She noted that the March 11 train 
bombers had funded the operation through proceeds from drug 
trafficking and that several terrorist suspects had prior 
convictions for narcotics trafficking. 
 
8. (C)  Raising the upcoming commemoration of the March 11, 
2004 Madrid train bombings, Charge informed de la Vega that 
DHS Director for International Affairs Cris Arcos would 
represent the USG.  De la Vega thanked Charge for the 
information, but expressed concern that sub-cabinet 
representation at the event would be interpreted as a slight 
of Spanish victims of terrorism.  Charge said that we were 
pleased that Ambassador Arcos would be able to attend and 
that misinterpretations of the level of attendance would be 
unforunate, but would have no basis in fact. 
 
//BORDER SECURITY// 
 
9. (C) Charge said the USG was working closely with Spanish 
officials to help improve border security for both countries. 
 He drew de la Vega's attention to the requirement for visa 
waiver countries to have a biometric passport program in 
place by October 25, 2005.  Charge also discussed the 
Embassy's interest in Spain's centralization of overseas 
passport production and noted the USG's offer to share its 
visa namecheck system on a bilateral pilot basis.  De la Vega 
agreed on the need for strong bilateral collaboration to 
improve border security, particularly in breaking down 
barriers to the smooth flow of intelligence/lookout 
information.  She said that, like the U.S. and other 
countries, Spain had to work hard to improve cooperation 
between its intelligence and police agencies.  She 
acknowledged that the Zapatero government's efforts to 
stimulate information sharing among Spanish security agencies 
had yielded only mixed results thus far. 
 
//COMMERCIAL ISSUES// 
 
10. (SBU) Charge emphasized the importance the USG placed on 
good trade relations with Spain and discussed biotech 
products and intellectual property rights as matters of 
particular concern.  Noting that we had raised the biotech 
issue in a recent meeting with Minister of Agriculture Elena 
Espinosa (ref B), Charge explained that the delay in approval 
of Monsanto's NK603 corn seed variety had triggered fears 
among U.S. producers that Spain may be shifting away from a 
science-based approach to biotech goods.  He also urged Spain 
to vote in favor of Pioneer 1507 seed applications in an 
upcoming EU Commission in Brussels rather than abstaining as 
Spain had done recently.  De la Vega said that she was not an 
expert on biotechnology issues, but that it was her 
understanding that GOS officials were sorting through EU 
regulations to ensure that Spain was in compliance with EU 
protocols related to the purchase/importation of biotech 
goods.  She promised to follow up with Minister of 
Agriculture Espinosa to ensure that there was no looming 
conflict with respect to the importation of U.S. biotech 
products. 
 
11. (SBU) De la Vega indicated strong interest in and 
understanding of intellectual property rights issues of 
importance to U.S. companies.  She said that a group of 
Spanish artists had visited her the day before to indicate 
their distress over the growing problem of music/video piracy 
and to urge swift action by the GOS.  Charge said it would be 
helpful to fix problems with Spain's draft law implementing 
the EU copyright directive.  De la Vega agreed that stronger 
laws would help, but said that there was a more fundamental 
problem of getting Spanish citizens to recognized IPR 
violations as serious infractions.  She expressed great 
frustration with the Spanish authorities' difficulties in 
making IPR cases prosecutable.  She said the Zapatero 
government was working to improve the effectiveness of its 
Integrated Plan for Fighting Intellectual Property Piracy 
(ref C). 
 
//COMMENT// 
 
12. (C) This was a good initial meeting with Vice President 
de la Vega, who appears to wield considerable influence, both 
as Vice President and as coordinator of the Council of 
Ministers.  She has a reputation as a tough, hard working 
politician with particular expertise in judicial issues. 
Though like many of the current set of Socialist leaders de 
la Vega is unfamiliar with the U.S., she was friendly and 
seemed well disposed to be a helpful interlocutor. 
 
//BIOGRAPHIC NOTES// 
 
13.(SBU) Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega was born in 
Valencia in 1949.  She received a masters degree in law from 
Universidad Complutense in Madrid and holds a doctorate from 
the Universidad Central de Barcelona.  She also studied 
international law at the University of Strasbourg. 
 
14. (SBU) In 1979, de la Vega joined the Unified Socialist 
Party of Catalonia (the Catalan branch of PSOE) and became 
one of the first women to join "Democratic Justice," an 
association of progressive jurists known today as the "Judges 
for Democracy."  In 1989, de la Vega was appointed Director 
General of Services in the Ministry of Justice and later 
served on the cabinet of the Committee of Directors for Legal 
Cooperation in the Council of Europe.  In 1994, de la Vega 
was appointed Deputy Minister of Justice by the Felipe 
Gonzalez Government, a post she vacated following the 
electoral victory of the Popular Party in 1996.  During the 
Aznar administration, de la Vega was secretary general of the 
Socialist Party's parliamentary group. 
 
15. (C) De la Vega has a reputation as a skilled, 
tough-minded politician and as a capable manager.  Her style 
is friendly, but precise and business-like.  She has visited 
the U.S., but is not especially familiar with U.S. society or 
with the USG.  Nevertheless, she seemed favorably disposed 
towards the USG and to greater contact with USG officials. 
 
MANZANARES