US embassy cable - 05PARIS2402

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 PARIS 002402 
 
SIPDIS 
 
FROM USMISSION UNESCO PARIS 
 
FOR IO/T BOOTH/COWLEY, L/EUR OLSON, L/UNA OSBORN, GENEVA FOR 
PEAY 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREL, ETRD, UNESCO, EUN, SCUD 
SUBJECT: UNESCO:  EU Seems to be Gaining Ground in its Push 
for EC Representation at Cultural Diversity Convention 
 
RE:  A) PARIS 2231, B) PARIS 01857, C) 2004 PARIS 8818, D) 
2004 PARIS 7677, E) RYMAN - OLSEN 4 APRIL E-MAIL 
 
1.  Summary.   The Luxembourg Ambassador, representing the 
European Union Presidency, and European Commission (EC) 
officials held an April 7 briefing to support the request 
that the April 2005 UNESCO Executive Board issue a decision 
that EC may participate, but not vote, in UNESCO-based 
negotiations concerning a Cultural Diversity Convention. 
Reprising themes sounded repeatedly over the last several 
months (refs A through D), they: 
 
--explained that the EC had exclusive competence in some 
subject areas covered in the draft Cultural Diversity 
Convention now under discussion in UNESCO; 
 
--argued that the EC's current status as an UNESCO Observer 
did not give it sufficient powers to fulfill its 
responsibilities in the Cultural Diversity negotiation 
process; 
 
--referred to substantial monetary contributions made by the 
EC and EU Member States to UNESCO; and 
 
--maintained that EC participation in the Cultural Diversity 
negotiation process would not create a precedent allowing 
similar status for other international regional groups. 
 
End summary. 
 
EU Member State and EC Reps Explain, Once Again, Evolving 
European Institutions 
--------------------------------------------- -------------- 
 
2.   Luxembourg Ambassador and EU Presidency Representative 
Hubert Wurth made short opening remarks emphasizing that 
European integration had eliminated the specter of war 
between the EU member states and had lead to peace and 
prosperity for them.  He then turned over the floor to the 
head of the EC's Observer Mission, Michel Vanden Abeele, who 
started with a brief explanation of how the EU functions. 
Turning to the Cultural Diversity Convention negotiations, 
he reported that a November 2004 Council of Ministers 
Decision had charged the European Commission the 
responsibility to represent the EU member states in the 
Cultural Diversity Convention negotiations with respect to 
the following subjects: 
 
--Free Movement of Goods, People and Capital 
--Competition Aid given by States 
--Internal Market 
--Intellectual Property 
--Trade Policy 
--Immigration 
--Development Cooperation (i.e., Assistance) 
 
4.  Vanden Abeele did not make any attempt to match up the 
sections of the draft Cultural Diversity Convention now 
under discussion with the subject matters within the EC's 
purview.   In response to a question from the Canadian 
Ambassador Yvon Charbonneau, an EC Commission lawyer, Thomas 
Hoffmeister, acknowledged the difficulties in making 
distinctions between matters within the exclusive competence 
of the EC and matters that remained the ambit of the EU 
Member States.  Hoffmeister also noted that "cultural 
policy" itself was a matter that remained within member 
state control and that in some member states, responsibility 
for cultural policy was assigned to local government. 
(Note.  The draft proposed decision does not list the areas 
of exclusive EC competence or limit the EC reps to speaking 
to areas within them.  Instead, it would generally allow the 
EC representatives to "actively participate in the name 
manner as full participants in the work of the 
Intergovernmental Meeting, excluding the right to vote." 
(Ref E)  End note.) 
 
Observer Status Not Enough 
--------------------------- 
 
5.  Hoffmeister acknowledged that the EC now has observer 
status in UNESCO, but maintained that the EC could not 
fulfill its responsibilities insofar as the Cultural 
Diversity Convention negotiations were concerned within the 
constraints imposed on UNESCO observers.  He noted three: 
 
--Observers speak last. 
--Observers' interventions are restricted in time. 
--Observers may intervene only once. 
 
(Comment.  In reality, the EC rep does not operate under 
these limitations in the Cultural Diversity Negotiations. 
Instead, the EC rep is "embedded" with the delegation of the 
EU Presidency.  This arrangement has allowed the EC rep to 
intervene along with the Member States and without 
limitation on the number of interventions or their length. 
Hoffmeister, however, did not even refer to the "embedding 
mechanism," let alone refer to any problems the EC had 
experienced with it.  End Comment.) 
The Money 
---------- 
 
6.  Luxembourg Ambassador Wurth emphasized that the twenty- 
five member EU States had entrusted the EC with the mandate 
to negotiate certain matters in the name of all.    They 
also made large monetary contributions to UNESCO, Wurth 
added, saying that "this (monetary contribution) and good 
relationships with other Member States" justify granting the 
request for EC participation. 
 
The Question of Precedent 
-------------------------- 
 
7.  At a number of points during their presentations, Wurth 
and the EC representatives said that the request for EC 
participation was limited to the cultural diversity 
convention negotiations.   During the question period, 
Canadian Ambassador Yvon Charbonneau noted that other groups 
of countries could ask for the same privileges and 
questioned whether this would be a wise precedent to set. 
 
8.  Hoffmeister addressed the issue by saying that the 
transfer of competencies from EU Member States to the EC is 
"so vast" that the EC has the competence to enter into 
treaties, but ASEAN, the OAU and other like organizations do 
not.    Hoffmeister did say that he was open to thinking 
about changing some of the text so as to lessen the 
possibility that other regional organizations could cite it 
as a precedent. 
 
9.   In response to another question, Hoffmeister explained 
that the phrase "economic regional integration 
organizations" in paragraph four has been used to refer to 
the EC in other UN documents and so had been used here. 
The Canadian Ambassador riposted that the proposed decision 
does not refer to these precedents and asked why not. 
Without pausing for a response, he went on to note that this 
decision is "not following precedent; it is establishing 
it."  He noted that if we continued down this path, UNESCO 
could become an organization in which the African regional 
organization speak for Africa, a Latin American regional 
organizations speaks for Latin America; an Asian 
organization for Asia, etc. 
 
10.  Comment.   The EC is not acting consistently with 
respect to requests to participate in UNESCO talks.  For 
example, the current UNESCO discussions on a bio-ethics 
declaration affect intellectual property matters, but the EC 
has not asked to participate in those talks. 
 
11.  Comment continued.   The EC and EU Member States have 
been hard at work, in Paris and in capitals, to line up 
support for its request for EC representation at the 
Cultural Diversity Convention (Refs A and B).  This work has 
apparently paid off.  This was a far smaller and friendlier 
audience than the audience at the first briefing session 
(ref C), during which Member State reps from all of UNESCO's 
geographically based electoral groups peppered the EC reps 
with sharp questions.  Fewer than two dozen non-EU 
representatives, with virtually none from developing 
countries, attended this session.  This time, only the 
Canadian Ambassador asked substantive questions. 
 
OLIVER