Commission’s new Cuba office signals boost in relations

Date: 01/08/02

By David Cronin

EU-CUBA relations are due to receive a boost in the autumn when the European Commission opens its new office in Havana.

Although it will have a staff of only one, its inauguration marks the culmination of months of effort by both sides to build stronger ties.

Fidel Castro's government has indicated that it wishes to sign-up to the Cotonou Agreement, the trade and aid accord between the EU and African, Caribbean and Pacific bloc.

Cuba applied to join the accord in 2000 but withdrew its bid abruptly, protesting at EU calls for an end to its one-party system and concerns over its human rights record. But an official at Cuba's Brussels embassy said it was now willing to sign the agreement - which states that respect for democratic principles is essential - in its entirety.

However, some EU states are not yet willing to admit the island into the 77-strong Cotonou fold.

'The ball is not in the hands of Cuba, the ball is in the hands of the European Union,' the official said.

Koos Richelle, head of the Commission's directorate-general for development, said the EU wants to move from giving humanitarian aid to providing development assistance.

'We want to go more in the direction of cooperation directly with Cuba,' he explained.

The Commission halted its humanitarian aid programme for the communist country in 2000.

However it has continued to support health, education and agriculture projects, usually in tandem with charities.

Around €16 million in EU funding was spent on the island during the 2000 financial year.

The improved ties will again underline differences between the EU and the US over how Castro's regime should be treated.

Efforts by the former US president Jimmy Carter and other senior American figures to achieve a reconciliation with Havana were scuppered by a recent White House statement branding Cuba a rogue state.

Critics of Washington's foreign policy have blamed its 42-year-old economic blockade of Cuba for increasing poverty levels on the island.

EU-Cuba relations are due to receive a boost in the autumn of 2002 when the European Commission opens its new office in Havana.