TRADE: Cuba Looking for Anti-Blockade Support

By Patricia Grogg Reprint | | Print |

Patricia Grogg

HAVANA, Jun 21 1999 (IPS) - Cuba is looking for a “strong and clear” rejection of the U.S. trade embargo against Havana when Latin American, Caribbean and European Union (EU) nations meet in Rio de Janeiro at the end of June.

Cuba will be attending the summit gathering but will not attempt to make the sanctions issue the focus of attention, says deputy foreign minister, Isabel Allende.

She believes, however, that the participating nations will draft criticism of the U.S. Helms-Burton Act, the linchpin of the embargo against Cuba, in their final declation.

Latin America “has every right to expect Europe to give the region attention and priority in world trade and international co- operation,” Allende says.

Latin American leaders at the Rio Summit, scheduled June 28-29, are expected to call upon their EU counterparts to enter into negotiations for free trade “under equal conditions” and for a stronger commitment to the region.

“The greatest challenge for the leaders meeting in Brazil will be finding ways to move from reciprocity to equality,” wrote one political analyst in a newspaper commentary.

Allende believes, however, it is a legitimate expectation that the Rio Summit will produce agreements that allow greater fluidity in trade, financial, and economic relations in general, between Latin America and Europe.

Cuba is the only Latin American country that does not have a co- operative agreement with the EU. In December 1996, the European bloc increased pressure on the island nation to implement internal reforms.

Although it is subject to revisions every six months, the “common stance” of the EU’s 15 members has not changed, nor has the emphatic refusal of the Cuban government to alter its political system.

“We do not accept political conditions from the EU or from anyone. It is about our principles in foreign relations,” Allende told reporters this week. She does not expect the summit to change the EU’s attitude toward Havana.

“We are not going to the summit with that goal,” she says. “But we are part of the concert of Latin American and Caribbean nations, joining the consensus on Latin American and Caribbean objectives.”

The vice-minister stated that, for her country, the “common stance” of the 15 EU countries toward Havana is descriminatory with “a sheen of interference that we have never liked.”

Allende downplays any effect stagnant EU-Cuba relations will have on the meeting, because in Rio, she says, they will discuss “global issues, not the particulars of any one country.”

Allende maintains that “Our attitude is to not interfere…our policy is to work together with Latin America to find solutions to global problems.”

Over recent years, EU humanitarian aid to Cuba has been cut from around 16 million dollars in 1995 to seven million dollars this year. In contrast, bilateral trade between Havana and individual EU nations is fairly fluid and in many cases shows signs of improving.

EU commerce was just seven percent of Cuba’s 1990 trade total, but by 1997 it had jumped to 30 percent, according to the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Trade.

The former socialist bloc took in most of Cuba’s exports for 30 years, until its 1991 breakup and the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Cuba’s trade with Spain – the island nation’s primary EU trade partner, followed by Italy and France – was more than 600 million dollars in 1998, according to official data released earlier this year.

Approximately 50 percent of foreign investment in Cuba come from EU countries, covering 34 sectors of the country’s economy.

The fact that no EU country has to consult with other member countries on trade issues has helped development of bilateral relations with Cuba, Allende says.

Multilateral relations are a different story, as there must be consensus among the 15 nations and, according to Allende, the level of obligations, closeness of ties, ideological affinity and the view of reality from the other side of the ocean all play a part.

Allende also believes the island’s relations with the EU could be channelled through the Lome Agreement where Havana has observer status.

The Lome Agreement establishes EU assistance and trade preferences for former European colonies in Africa and Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries.

“If we decide to join the Lome Treaty and it is approved by the ACP and the EU,” Allende considered, “obviously relations with the EU will be institutionalised that way, not through a co- operative agreement.”

The Rio de Janeiro Summit will release a final declaration and a document called “Priority for Joint Action,” a type of plan that provides the general framework for co-operation, according to sources here.

The summit gathering will be preceded by a technical meeting on Jun. 26 and a meeting of foreign ministers on Jun. 27.

Cuba will participate “at the appropriate level,” says Allende, who has not confirmed president Fidel Castro’s attendance at the summit. “I don’t know his schedule, but we expect to participate as required, like all other countries.”