Lack of reforms brings EU-Cuba talks to an end

Date: 09/05/1996

By Elizabeth Wise

DESPITE complaining loudly about new US legislation reinforcing the American embargo on Cuba, the EU this week threw cold water on its own relations with Havana.

The Commission, which for the past year has been waiting at Fidel Castro's door to begin talks for a trade and economic cooperation agreement, has now said that it will not follow through with plans to present member states with a negotiating plan next month.

“We cannot go further,” said a spokesman for Commissioner Manuel Marín, who oversees EU relations with Latin America. “We had some shared values, but we disagree over key elements.”

Marín did not even receive Cuba's Deputy Foreign Minister Isabel Allende when she came to Brussels on Tuesday (7 May) to present a detailed negotiating position to the Commission, which will then draw up a mandate for talks. “It was deemed unnecessary,” said his spokesman.

Instead, she met with Commission representative Jose Miguel Anacorta in what a government spokesman in Havana described as “an atmosphere of cordiality and respect”.

Explaining the Commission's sudden turn-around, Marín aides said Castro's government had not made progress on the political and economic reforms on which the EU hinged its promises for opening cooperation talks. “The steps we were expecting from the Cuban side were not taken,” said Marín's spokesman.

Although he did not mention human rights, the Commission has been pressing for changes to the island nation's penal system and for an end to the practice of jailing political opponents of the Communist regime.

Marín and the Commission have repeatedly said that rather than pressuring Havana from the outside, “solutions must come from inside Cuba”.

But that tactic appears not to have produced results.

The Union has also refined its arguments against Washington's new Helms-Burton law, which allows Cuban Americans to sue foreign firms making profits in Cuba.

No longer complaining about whether the law could hurt Cuba, the Commission is worried about its possible effect on European companies operating there.

US officials, who had been expected to release a list of hundreds of European companies or ventures which could be affected, said this week that the law's full implications were still unknown.

The EU has called for formal consultations with the Americans at the World Trade Organisation (WTO). If those talks do not satisfy the Union, it may then ask the WTO to arbitrate.

Meanwhile, Marín's spokesman insists the end of formal EU-Cuba talks on economic cooperation does not mean the door has closed on their relations. Explaining that humanitarian aid and political dialogue were continuing, he added: “We can get back together at any time.”