Cuba Rejects Attempts to Setback Links With the European Union

Women walk down a street in Havana, Cuba, Jun. 3, 2021. | Photo: EFE

Published 6 June 2021

A minority group of European lawmakers calls for analyzing the human rights situation on the island in a move to halt political and cooperation dialogue.

Cuba's Parliament rejected the intention of a group of lawmakers from the European Parliament to analyze the human rights situation on the island.

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Cuban lawmakers expressed that the initiative seeks to stop the implementation of the Political Dialogue and Cooperation Agreement signed between the European Union (EU) and Cuba in 2016.

Noting that the "maneuver" has been promoted by a minority in the European Parliament, the Cuban officials assured that the move responds to the U.S. historical hostile position against the Caribbean nation. 

"These politicized exercises respond to the demands of outside interests that seek to compromise the EU independent action in foreign policy... We respectfully call on European lawmakers not to play along with such infamy," Cuban officials stressed.

The Cuban Parliament decried that the strengthening of the U.S. blockade amid the COVID-19 pandemic had not been a subject of discussion by EU lawmakers. They also pointed out that the blockade affects also European businessmen.

Local authorities added that human rights violations in the U.S. and Europe itself had not been addressed by the minority group which is trying to approve a resolution against Cuba. 

After coming into force in 2017, the Cuba-EU Political Dialogue and Cooperation Agreement put an end to two decades of European policies that demanded "progress" in democratization and human rights as a condition for the development of bilateral relations.