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POLITICS-EU/ACP: Co-operation with Cuba at a Crossroads

Hughes Belin

BRUSSELS, May 17 2000 (IPS) - The European Union (EU) is considering re- orientating its co-operation with Cuba from humanitarian aid to support for local Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), said the Union’s top development official this week.

Poul Nielson, the EU Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid, said that the move was not connected to the island nation’s recent unilateral withdrawal of its candidature from the partnership convention between the EU and the Africa, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group.

Rather, the shift is in line with the EU’s Common Position of promoting human rights, democracy and a free press as a fundamental aspect of its external relations and development policy, agreed on by EU foreign ministers in Berlin earlier this year.

Cuba withdrew its request for admission to the convention, a trade and aid pact through which the EU provides preferential treatment to the ACP, after several members of the European bloc on Apr. 18 voted in favour of a resolution before the United Nations’ Commission on Human Rights in Geneva condemning Havana for alleged human rights abuses.

The 71 countries of the ACP group, meanwhile, are determined to maintain relations with the island nation at a time when the EU- Cuban diplomatic relationship is at an all-time low. The ACP Council has decided to send a mission to Cuba in an attempt to smooth relations between the two.

Anicet Georges Dologuele, President of the ACP Council and Prime Minister of the Central African Republic, announced on May 10 that the group “does not want to cut their links with Cuba.”

The ACP Council has shown their solidarity with Havana by inviting Cuba as an observer to its next Council of Ministers session, which takes place Jun. 5-6 in Suva, Fiji, just prior to the Jun. 8 signing ceremony there for the new EU-ACP partnership agreement.

The ACP has not said publicly whether it would seek to invite Cuba as an observer to the joint EU-ACP Council and the signing ceremony of what is to be called the Suva Convention, which will replace the successive Lome Conventions, in place since 1975. The EU would have to agree to the invitation, and that is unlikely to occur, say observers.

ACP Secretary-General Jean-Robert Goulongana, said earlier this month he regretted “that unfortunate misunderstandings had led to Cuba withdrawing its application” adding that he hoped “this does not mean that all paths to negotiation are irretrievably blocked.”

Goulongana declared himself “ready to enter constructive dialogue again” between the EU and Cuba.

The proposed ACP mission to Havana would explore the possibility of Cuba becoming more closely associated with the new partnership agreement, the Suva Convention.

According to the ACP spokesperson in Brussels, “the accession of Cuba would give another dimension to the partnership convention.”

He pointed out that Cuba and South Africa (a qualified member of the EU-ACP Convention for which not all articles apply), if admitted, would be virtually the only countries within the ACP group capable of providing assistance to other members.

The spokesperson pointed to the presence of 200 Cuban general practitioners in Haiti as evidence of Havana’s ability to contribute along these lines.

Speaking to a handful of journalists May 15, EU Commissioner Nielson has declined to comment on Cuba’s withdrawal of its candidature except to say “it’s Cuba’s own decision.” Nevertheless, he said that the EU’s humanitarian aid to Cuba would go from supporting the health sector (about half of the EU’s aid to Cuba) to support for bolstering Cuban civil society.

EU aid to Cuba amounts to some 17 million euros annually, of which some 11.4 million goes to the health sector; 700,000 goes to food aid; 2.8 million to NGOs; and economic co-operation get 2.1 million euros.

The new orientation would allow for phasing out the support to the health sector and to replace it by financing NGOs on the EU budget. The areas targeted are democracy and human rights, and free press and independence of information. Other areas may include the promotion of autonomous development and NGOs’ institutional capacity building. In this regard, the EU Executive Commission will soon launch its first call for proposals.

“In no way we intend to reduce our activities there,” said Nielson, insisting that this re-orientation had no direct link with the latest political events. “It would have happened anyway,” he said.

The EU’s UN vote came from concern over what the bloc believes is a systematic denial of human rights and fundamental freedoms in Cuba and the continued oppression of dissidents, a Portuguese representative in Geneva explained at the time. He reiterated the EU position that its objective was to encourage a process of transition in Cuba.

Relations between Cuba and the EU turned sour after the visit of the EU Troika (which consists of the current and future EU Presidency and Javier Solana, the EU High Representative for a Common Foreign and Security Policy) to the island on Apr. 27-28 was cancelled.

The Portuguese representative noted that although the UN draft resolution did not mention the damage caused by a longstanding US economic embargo against Cuba, the EU does not believe in bringing about change through such “coercive methods,” which bring about the suffering of the Cuban people.

The current EU position allows for flexibility should the island show “progress” on human rights and democracy.

The dialogue between the EU and Cuba is based on a EU Ministers’ statement – so-called “common position” – of 1996 seeking to promote a dialogue between the EU and all sectors of Cuban society (Government, church, civil society, for example).

It considered that full co-operation with Cuba is condition for an improvement in the situation for human rights and political freedoms. As the Cuban authorities made progress towards democracy, the EU was to provide support to the process and examine the appropriate use of the resources the Union has for this purpose.

The EU was prepared in the meantime, to channel ad hoc humanitarian aid through the Member States, subject to a prior agreement concerning the way it should be distributed. The Common Position has been extended every six months since then.

On Dec. 6, 1999, the EU Ministers of Foreign Affairs took note of the sixth evaluation and the proposal to maintain the EU common position on Cuba. The Council noted that since the previous evaluation, last June, “there have not been changes in conditions in the country that would justify a modification” of the EU strategy towards Cuba.

As the EU Common Position “offered enough flexibility” to the grouping and its Member States to react if developments in Cuba were to give sufficient reasons for changing the strategy, the Council confirmed the Common Position of December 1996, while continuing to vigorously promote the fundamental principles of EU policy and underlining that “result-oriented dialogue and humanitarian aid, not isolation”, were EU priorities in its relations with Cuba.

The latest EU declaration on Cuba dates back to Jun. 25, 1999 when the Community condemned the decisions the Cuban authorities had taken in recent months for greater use of the death penalty. At least seven Cuban prisoners a month had been secretly executed since the start of the year, according to the EU.

During its latest session, at the end of March, the EU-ACP Joint Assembly, comprising members of the European Parliament and national parliaments in the ACP countries, took a vote on a resolution concerning Cuba. This supported the Cuban application to join a new ACP-EU Partnership Agreement provided Cuba, just like all the other signatories, undertook to abide by the principles in the new convention.

The Joint Assembly wanted Cuba to be able to sign the agreement during the official signing ceremony, but this now seems quite unlikely. At the time the Assembly had even asked the Commission to prepare to open a delegation in Cuba.

 
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