Category — EU

Via Deutsche Welle:

The Cuban government under new leader Raul Castro has reportedly accepted the resumption of formal political dialogue with the EU after it lifted diplomatic sanctions against the island two months ago.

The EU representative in Havana, Javier Nino this week signaled interest in taking up formal talks with Europe in what could be a first step towards normalization of strained relations between the 27-member bloc and Cuba.

In a letter handed over earlier this month at the embassy of France, current holder of the EU’s rotating presidency, Nino said the communist regime was interested in restarting dialogue with the EU

“The Cuban government agrees to begin dialogue. (…) The EU proposal is an unconditional dialogue, mutual benefit, mutual respect on a number of issues such as rights and environmental issues,” Nino told news agency AFP on Tuesday, Sept 16.

“At this moment the two sides are negotiating over when (plans for) the dialogue can be firmed up, but ideally it will be relatively soon,” he said, adding that no date or venue had been set.

EU lifted sanctions against Cuba

Dialogue between Cuba and Europe broke off when the EU imposed diplomatic sanctions against the Caribbean island in 2003, angering Havana, after the Cuban government arrested 75 dissidents.

The sanctions were suspended in 2005, but not formally lifted until July 19.

The EU has said the sanctions will be reviewed annually with an eye on the human rights situation in Cuba. The elimination of sanctions was accompanied by an invitation for the communist-run government to join in a “global political dialogue.”

News of a thaw in relations between EU and Cuba came after the island was battered by Hurricane Gustav and just before Hurricane Ike, which caused an estimated $5 billion in damages.

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The Economist has a piece on the effects of the embargo and foreign investment in Cuba:

FOR almost half a century, the United States has imposed a trade embargo against Cuba. And yet it sometimes seems barely visible. Across the island, American brands are ubiquitous. Tourists can order a Coca-Cola (made in Mexico) in state-run hotels. Computers running Microsoft software have appeared in the capital’s few electronics stores. A fleet of Ford tankers refuel aeroplanes at Havana’s airport. Taking advantage of an exemption introduced in 2000, American farmers have become Cuba’s biggest source of food imports, a cash trade worth $600m a year. No wonder that some Cubans wonder whether the “blockade” which the government blames for nearly all of Cuba’s problems might be some sort of Orwellian trick. “Does it really exist?” asks a medical student in Havana. “I don’t know what to believe anymore.”

But plenty of companies that deal with Cuba have recently been reminded that the embargo is real. Last month, the United States’ Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Control, which is responsible for enforcing it, fined Minxia, a Maryland-based subsidiary of China’s MinMetals Corporation, $1.2m for dealing in Cuban metals. Gate Gourmet, a Swiss-American group, was ordered to pay $600,000 because it supplies in-flight meals to Cuba’s national airline.

Although the embargo has manifestly failed in its objective of removing Fidel Castro’s communist regime, in 1996 it was tightened by the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act (better known, after the legislators who sponsored it, as Helms-Burton). This attempts to apply the embargo to foreign companies and individuals. Its extraterritorial pretension riles even many of America’s closest allies. It has notably been invoked to ban the directors of Sherritt, a Canadian firm which runs Cuba’s nickel mines, from entering the United States. (They included a former editor of The Economist). But in deference to those allies, the Act’s draconian Title III, which gives Americans who owned property in Cuba before the revolution the right to sue foreigners who now invest there, has been waived every six months, first by Bill Clinton and then by George Bush.

[Read more →]

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The European Courier has published an article titled “The Future of Cuba,” which discusses the new role of Cuba in a world in which the US is becoming less dominant (see hypotheses written by Parag Khanna of the New America Foundation and Fareed Zakaria, editor of Newsweek International) and is forcing Cuba to form new relationships with the US, the EU and most importantly China.

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