The signature of the cooperation agreement between Cuba and the European Union is a strong signal of the willingness of the Europeans and Cubans to strengthen their political and economic ties, the High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini, said on Monday 12 December (see EUROPE 11677).
The move will give a shot into the arm to the procedure underway to allow the Caribbean island to open up towards other countries and to explore new areas of cooperation, such as science and renewable energy, Mogherini said. She went on to say that the controversial issue of human rights in Cuba would be discussed "as friends with no taboos" in the framework of the bilateral agreement. Nonetheless, the Cuban Foreign Minister, Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla, stressed that any political dialogue would take place without the interference of the Europeans in the internal political organisation of the island, which is marked by a single-party system and the absence of democratic elections. He also called for total respect of human rights in Europe, towards refugees and in terms of gender equality.
On Monday, the European foreign ministers also decided to annul the 'common position' of 1996 of the Council of the EU, which made any deepening of the EU's relations with Cuba subject to progress in the field of human rights.
Mogherini also said that the change of administration in the United States, to come into force in January when Donald Trump takes over the White House, will "not affect in any way" the relations between the EU and Cuba. She pointed out that the Europeans had already raised concerns about the "extraterritorial effects" of the US embargo against Cuba, which Rodriguez Parrilla called again to be lifted on Monday.
Freshly returned from Miami, where he attended a meeting of some 30 Cuban political opposition organisations, the Czech liberal Pavel Telička urged Mogherini not to reduce this opposition to just human rights defenders. In a declaration sent to Mogherini and signed by the dissident and 2010 winner of the Sakharov Prize, Guillermo Fariñas (see EUROPE 10880), these organisations call for the ratification of the cooperation agreement with Cuba to be conditional on the creation of a pluralist political system, an end to political repression, freedom for Cubans to co-invest and to trade freely with European private interests. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)