Borrell travels to Cuba to strengthen ties in full strategy of rapprochement with Latin America

2023-05-25T10:55:42.711Z

Highlights: Head of European diplomacy begins a visit to Havana that is viewed with suspicion by those who demand greater pressure from Brussels for human rights violations on the island. "You cannot have a relationship with Latin America, much more with the Ibero-American community, without Cuba," Spanish diplomatic sources stress. Cuba, a country of little economic weight, but of great political charge, in addition to a historical relationship with Russia, can still open doors. Or close them, as the case may be.

The head of European diplomacy begins a visit to Havana that is viewed with suspicion by those who demand greater pressure from Brussels for human rights violations on the island

Officially, the trip that Josep Borrell begins in Cuba this Thursday responds to a routine bilateral appointment. But like any visit by a politician to Havana, the one that the EU's high representative for foreign policy begins on the Caribbean island has little of ordinary and much of symbolic. Especially at a time when Europe wants to take advantage of the imminent Spanish presidency to relaunch relations with Latin America. And Cuba, a country of little economic weight, but of great political charge, in addition to a historical relationship with Russia, can still open doors. Or close them.

"You cannot have a relationship with Latin America, much more with the Ibero-American community, without Cuba," Spanish diplomatic sources stress. Especially at a time when at least two of the key countries for Brussels in the region, Brazil and Mexico, have governments very sensitive to the treatment given to the Caribbean island. For this reason, the Government of Pedro Sánchez sees with very good eyes this visit, which precedes the EU-CELAC summit (Community of Latin American and Caribbean States) to be held in Brussels in July, as the starting signal for a boost to Europe's ties with a key region, not only in terms of political alliances, but also economic and raw materials now that relations with Russia and China have become exponentially complicated.

But both Madrid and Brussels are aware that, when it comes to Cuba, we are walking a very fine path and that many suspicious eyes – especially on human rights, in which the island's government has a long black record – will follow Borrell's every step in Havana. The warnings have not stopped coming since the trip of the senior community official was announced a week ago.

Borrell arrives on his first official trip to Cuba as head of European diplomacy – he was already as Spanish Foreign Minister previously, the last in 2019 – to participate in the third EU-Cuba Joint Council, in which he will face Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez, one of the strong men of the president, Miguel Díaz Canel. The meeting is part of the Political Dialogue and Cooperation Agreement with which the two parties put an end in 2016 to 20 years of estrangement by the so-called European common position promoted at the time by the Government of José María Aznar. Those were years in which today two powers of which the West is more suspicious than ever – Russia and then China – took the opportunity to reinforce their presence in Cuba as a door to the coveted Latin American region.

Moscow was, since its Soviet times, a key ally of the then Government of Fidel Castro and has remained so until today: it has been Russia, recalls political scientist Arturo López-Levy, which "has come to the rescue" of Cuba in the umpteenth deep economic crisis that the country is experiencing since the covid pandemic devastated tourism and that has forced the island even to cancel this year its symbolic parade of the First of May. But this does not mean that Havana only listens to the Kremlin, adds the Cuba specialist, who currently serves as a visiting professor at the Center for International Relations of the Autonomous University of Madrid.

"One thing that has been missing in Europe is understanding the difference between what unconditional support for Russia means and what Cuban multilateral diplomacy has actually promoted, a kind of pro-Russian neutrality," López-Levy said. In this context, Cuba's abstentions in the votes at the United Nations condemning Russia for the invasion of Ukraine are significant, different from Nicaragua's repeated support for Moscow.

Therefore, "if Borrell plays the right keys of the piano," he believes, Cuba can become an interesting partner for Europe, especially at this time when "the EU is committed to multilateralism" and Havana holds the rotating presidency of the group of 134 developing countries that make up the G-77 + China.

"Cuba can cooperate with Borrell's agenda so that Latin America is a partner of a strategically more autonomous Europe," as Brussels seeks, especially since the war in Ukraine highlighted its dangerous foreign dependencies, adds the political scientist. For its part, Cuba needs Europe as it can be a lever to advance in two of its recurring demands before the United States: the condemnation of the sanctions that Joe Biden has not finished reversing after the era of Donald Trump, who undid much of the thaw policy undertaken before by Barack Obama, and also leave Washington's list of countries sponsoring terrorism, to which the island returned by decision of the Republican president in 2021. The EU is also the main trading partner, investment and cooperation on the island, recalls Brussels.

A clearer human rights agenda

During his stay, until May 27, Borrell plans to meet, in addition to Cuban authorities, with businessmen from the island and "a spectrum of voices from Cuban society to learn their perspectives on the challenges and opportunities." This program has not been well received by the Popular Party. For the MEP of this formation Antonio López-Istúriz, in the agenda there is "a clear mention of the lack of human rights and freedoms in the country".

"I encourage the High Representative to meet with representatives of the opposition, relatives of political prisoners and free civil society organizations, and not only with those orchestrated by the regime," he said in a statement.

"Borrell's visit to Cuba will be important for Cuban society if the EU can put pressure on the Cuban government to put human rights at the centre of the discussion," agrees Erik Jennische, Latin America director at Civil Rights Defenders. On the eve of the trip of the head of European diplomacy to Havana, this Swedish NGO signed with seven other organizations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, a statement demanding that, in his meetings with the Government of the island, Borrell "urge the Cuban authorities to immediately and unconditionally release all people detained solely for exercising their human rights."

"The agreement that Cuba has signed with the EU says that the parties are going to respect human rights and democracy and, obviously, that country is not doing it," says Jennische, and warns: "Cuba will not move towards democracy and respect for human rights if the voices of that civil society are not heard and if there is no real international pressure for the Government to stop its practices of violation of human rights".

Without revealing more details of his agenda – something common, on the other hand, in countries where the opposition suffers habitual official harassment – Borrell has limited himself to defending these days what he has been saying since before he became the voice of European foreign policy: with countries with which complex relations are maintained. We must dialogue, always. "With Cuba you have to talk, you have to talk to everyone," he defends as a mantra that he will also take to Havana.

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