Europe and Cuba: The Price of Dialogue Without Consequences

MARÍA TERESA CAMINERO, Secretary of Exterior Relations

When the European Union signed its first bilateral agreement with Cuba's Communist dictatorship in 2016, very few international analysts predicted positive results.

Rather, they interpreted it as a successful proposal of the European socialist wing that would give oxygen to the Cuban Stalinist regime at the expense of the legitimate interests of the kidnapped Cuban people.

It promised an era of dialogue, cooperation and transformation, by which some deluded people hoped for an improvement in human rights and other fundamental issues that were part of the Agreement.

Today, almost a decade later, the balance is bleak: there has been no democratic reform, no improvement in human rights, no real progress in the relationship with a civil society that continues to be held hostage by a totalitarian and repressive regime, where civil rights are violated, there is an abusive prison system, and crimes against humanity are committed.

The Political Dialogue and Cooperation Agreement (ADPC) has served more as an instrument of international legitimization for Castroism than as a lever for change.

While the European Union financed development projects, the repressive apparatus was strengthened.

While meetings on “good governance” were held, hundreds of Cubans were sentenced to prison for peacefully protesting and demanding democracy, freedom, and change.

Europe talked about cooperation, but the dictatorship only accepted cooperation that did not require change on their part.

Where did they put the democratic clause?

Where are the consequences for non-compliance?

How can we justify the continued disbursement of millions of euros to a failed state that is classified as narco-terrorist and denies basic freedoms?

Europe must recover its moral sense in its foreign policy.

Dialogue without conditions is submission. And cooperation without freedom only prolongs the suffering of a people that has already waited for too long.

The people of Cuba need support, yes, but not on the basis of collaboration and complicity with the regime that oppresses them.

It is evident that this Agreement has only served to benefit, give oxygen to, and try to legitimize a criminal, violating, and corrupt regime, a retaining wall to the aspirations of freedom, democracy and the rights of the Cuban people.

On behalf of the kidnapped people of Cuba, the Cuban National Congress will have as one of its agendas and tasks to make diplomatic efforts and lobby for the cancellation of this Agreement, which is harmful to the best interests of the Cuban people.