Credit: eeas.europa.eu /    Relations between the European Union and Cuba are based on a political dialogue that promotes cooperation, respect for human rights, the modernisation of the Cuban economy, and the development of joint responses to global challenges. Both the EU and Cuba seek to strengthen the United Nations as the core of the multilateral system and to support the strategic partnership between the European Union and Latin American and the Caribbean.

By Gary Raynaldo        DIPLOMATIC  TIMES

Cuba sharply denounced the effects suffered by the hardening of the US economic blockade in a dialogue held with the European Union on unilateral coercive measures. The EU and Cuba held their second formal dialogue on unilateral coercive measures Friday in Havana.  The dialogue provides a structured framework to exchange views on coercive measures of unilateral character with extraterritorial application that are contrary to international law and commonly accepted rules of international trade, according to an EU spokesperson.  They discussed the reinforcement of the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States against Cuba since the last dialogue session and the US activation of Title III and IV of the Helms-Burton Act in April 2019. Since 1962, the United States has maintained a crippling economic embargo on Cuba. The UN General Assembly this month called for an end to the decades-old US blockade on Cuba. Among the 193-Member States, the UN voted overwhelmingly 187-3  in favor of ending the embargo.  As expected, the US and its ally Israel voted against it.

Credit: UN Photo / Evan Schneider /    United Nations General Assembly during the vote to end the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba Nov. 7, 2019.  The resolution was adopted 187 in favour, 3 against and 2 abstentions.

The Cuba-EU meeting,  held behind closed doors in Havana, examined the use of coercive measures as a means of putting political and economic pressure on member states,    The Cuban delegation denounced the U.S. blockade against the island that has existed for more than half a century.   

“Cuba denounces that the blockade is intensifying and that it constitutes the most severe and prolonged unilateral coercive measure applied against any country and the main obstacle to the economic development of the nation. The European Union cannot ignore that reality.”

-Rodolfo Reyes, general director of multilateral affairs and international law at Cuba’s Foreign Ministry stated via Twitter .

#Cuba denuncia que el bloqueo de #EEUU se recrudece y que constituye la medida coercitiva unilateral más severa y prolongada aplicada contra país alguno y el principal obstáculo para el desarrollo económico de la nación.
La Unión Europea no puede desconocer esa realidad. pic.twitter.com/nWo0CPzdg7

— Rodolfo Reyes (@DirDGAMDI) November 29, 2019

Cuba’s Foreign Minister, Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, reported that in recent months Washington has begun to “escalate aggression”, including by preventing international fuel shipments to the island, scaling down consular services, and attacking national programmes that support other developing countries.

“The blockade has caused incalculable humanitarian damages. It is a flagrant, massive and systematic violation of human rights,” he charged. “It qualifies as an act of genocide under Articles II (b) and (c) of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, adopted in 1948. There is not one single Cuban family that has not suffered the consequences of this.”

-Bruno Eduardo Rodríguez Parrilla, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Cuba, stated during the UN General Assembly vote Nov. 7, 2019. 

The European Union delegation was led by Katja Afheldt, Head of the Mexico, Central America and Caribbean Division of the European External Action Service (EEAS) and included representatives of that Division, of the EEAS Sanctions Policy Division, as well as of the European Commission’s Service for Foreign Policy Instruments.  Rodolfo Reyes Rodríguez, Director General for Multilateral Issues and International Law of the Cuban Ministry for Foreign Affairs led the Cuban side, and was accompanied by Cuban Ambassador to the European Union Norma Goicochea Estenoz, as well as other officials of the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs.  The parties also discussed other possible actions to prevent or mitigate the effects of the extraterritorial application of the embargo such as the continuation of the modernisation process in Cuba and the implementation of economic and social reforms.   The E.U. has also called for the end of the U.S. Embargo against Cuba, and the Helms-Burton Act. 

The EU is Cuba’s largest trading partner and investor with nearly $3 billion of  trade with the island.

The Dialogue on Unilateral Coercive Measures is one of five political dialogues held under the EU-Cuba Political Dialogue and Cooperation Agreement (PDCA), which is being provisionally applied since 1 November 2017. All five political dialogues are preceded by events with civil society.

The other dialogues concern the areas of:

• Human Rights
• 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development
• Non-proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction
• Control of Conventional Arms