Brussels, 10/03/2008 (Agence Europe) - Spurred on by the encouraging meetings he held during his visit to Havana from 7-9 March (EUROPE 9605), Louis Michel, European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid, believes that the time is right to normalise relations between the EU and Cuba, under its new president, Raul Castro.
Although he did not meet the new Cuban president, the commissioner held talks with Foreign Affairs Minister Felipe Perez Roque and the country's vice president, Carlos Lage. The climate of these talks convinced him that the time was right for a “constructive agreement through open and reciprocal political dialogue with President Raùl Castro and his government”, the commissioner stressed - a diplomatic way of expressing his desire to put an end to the diplomatic sanctions set in place by the EU against Cuba in 1993 after a wave of political repression.
In a press release published in Havana on 7 March, Louis Michel states: “Our meeting was positive and encouraging. I have come to Havana to seek a constructive dialogue with the Cuban authorities and so I am pleased that together we were able to have a dialogue on a range of topics of mutual interest, including human rights, but also on such issues as climate change and the environment. All these issues deserve our attention”.
These issues may also become the main areas for the development of future cooperation. It was with a view to this that they were on the agenda of exploratory discussions between the commissioner and Marta Lomas, the minister for foreign investment and cooperation, Ricardo Alarcon de Quesada, the president of the National Assembly, and Fernando Gonzalez, the minister for science, technology and the environment.
In a joint declaration published on 9 March, Cuba and the European Commission expressed their joint willingness to “continue to work towards the normalisation of relations”, reiterated their mutual desire to see the dialogue process move forward and stated that “constructive dialogue is the best way of contributing towards the normalisation of relations”. In Cuba's opinion, the European sanctions “have constituted the main obstacle to the establishment of political dialogue and must be removed for good”, a point of view which the Commission accepts, the statement notes.
In the Cuban government's signature, on 28 February, of international pacts on social and cultural economic rights and civil and political rights, and in the liberation, a short time earlier, of a number of political prisoners, Louis Michel sees positive progress worthy of congratulation. The Presidency of the EU, for its part, more circumspectly “encourages Cuba to continue with these positive developments and to further strengthen its cooperation with the international human rights mechanisms” and “looks forward to the implementation of these legally binding human rights obligations by Cuba”. (A.N.)