Brussels, 19/09/2002 (Agence Europe) - Cuban diplomatic sources have announced that Cuban "Minister of Government", Ricardo Cabrissa, will be meeting European Commissioner Poul Nielson and CFSP High Representative, Javier Solana, next Monday, as well as Trade Commissioner, Pascal Lamy next Thursday. The same sources also announced that a new meeting of "political dialogue", relaunched under the Belgian Presidency will also be held on 4 November in Copenhagen.
Next week's meeting will allow a review to be made on the implementation of co-operation programmes funded by the Commission. Although Cuba has not concluded the co-operation agreement with the EU, the Commission supports economic co-operation projects and co-finances, together with NGOs, projects in the social and health arenas.
After having withdrawn his candidature from the EU/ACP accession agreement, Cuba became a member of the "ACP group" without actually being a member of the EU and African-Caribbean-Pacific Cotonou Agreement. The Cuban government does not yet appear ready to change its mind on the decision. "Cuba accepts the conditions of the Convention. On the other hand, we cannot accept the additional conditions to those of the text", explained a Cuban diplomat. "We are open to dialogue on all reasonable themes but we will not give up our sovereignty…there is not question of us going back to a colonial situation", added the same source.
Cuba has, all the same, requested observer status during the EU/ACP trade negotiations, which will begin on 27 September. The Permanent Representatives Committee (Coreper) took the decision on Wednesday to accept Cuba as a "special guest" of the ACP group during the inaugural negotiations session. On the other hand not official statement on Cuba's observer status has been made. "The EU has not received any official request for the moment", indicated one European source.