Brussels, 20/10/2008 (Agence Europe) - Commissioner Louis Michel has welcomed the outcome of the meeting that the EU Troika held last week in Paris (16 October) with the government of Cuba. The meeting unfolded in a constructive spirit and is a “positive step in view of a normalisation of relations between both parties”, Mr Michel says in a declaration published on Monday 20 October. Discussions were on the financial crisis, human rights, cooperation with Cuba and reform of the UN and showed, he said, “the potential for dialogue and cooperation that exists between both sides”. “We should now keep working to strengthen the process of political dialogue that the European Commission has always backed in a very clear way”, he went on to say. Mr Michel will himself be in Havana from 22-25 October, in the hope that the meeting “can mark the formal take-up of cooperation between the European Commission and Cuba” in fields such as the environment, trade, science and technology, cultural exchanges and natural disaster prevention. (H.B./transl.jl)