Borrell will travel to Cuba next week as part of the EU's rapprochement with Latin America

The High Representative for EU Foreign Policy, the Spanish Josep Borrell, will embark next week on his first official visit to Cuba as head of European diplomacy. Although the trip is part of the regular meetings that Brussels established with the island since at the end of 2016 it abandoned the "common position" promoted by José María Aznar two decades earlier, the appointment acquires special relevance at a time when the Twenty-seven seek to relaunch their relations with Latin America, taking advantage of the imminent Spanish presidency of the EU. from July.

"The visit is part of the EU's rapprochement with Latin American and Caribbean countries on the eve of the next EU-CELAC summit," confirm community sources in reference to the appointment set in the Belgian capital on July 17 and 18. Both Brussels and Spain hope that the meeting will be a turning point in the European relationship with the Latin American continent. Cuba is also an "important voice" among developing countries as president pro tempore of the group of 134 developing countries that make up the G-77 + China, recalls Brussels.

In the absence of specifying the agenda, community sources have advanced this Tuesday that Borrell will travel to Cuba from May 25 to 27. The main objective is to participate in the third EU-Cuba Joint Council that the Spanish diplomat will co-chair with Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez. These types of appointments are part of the Political Dialogue and Cooperation Agreement between Cuba and the European Union with which the two decades of estrangement represented by the European "common position" was ended. The last physical meeting of this format was held in September 2019, when EU diplomacy was still in the hands of Federica Mogherini. A month later, Borrell traveled to Havana, although as Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs, in one of his last missions before assuming the diplomatic portfolio from the Italian, in December of that year. Two years later, in 2021, already with Borrell at the helm, the appointment was limited to a mere informal meeting by videoconference, due to the pandemic.

Already then, the Spanish diplomat defended the importance of reestablishing a dialogue with Cuba that, although difficult, is key to being able to discuss issues such as the always controversial situation of human rights on the island. "I don't think that by returning to the system of incommunicado detention adopted by the EU at the behest of another Spanish government we would be better off and better able to influence and contact Cuba," Borrell told the European Parliament that same year when presenting the new European policy with Havana.

The EU maintains a "critical, but constructive" policy with Cuba, with "open and frank" exchanges on issues of common interest, such as sustainable development or the fight against climate change, but also on issues where visions "differ", especially in the field of "human rights and fundamental freedoms, and since last year, Russia's war against Ukraine," EU sources said.

In addition to the meeting with members of the Cuban Government, Borrell plans to meet during his stay on the island with members of the EU business community, as well as with "Cuban businessmen" and, also, with "voices of Cuban society" from which he hopes to hear "their perspectives regarding the challenges and opportunities" of Cuba. According to the sources.

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