Cuba's calls for normal relations with EU face resistance

May 11, 2009, 18:27 GMT

Brussels - Cuba on Monday asked the European Union to normalize its relations with the Latin American island nation, but the call was met with resistance from the bloc's Czech presidency.

'Cuba enjoys normal relations with practically every country in the world and is willing to advance the normalization of its relations with the EU,' said Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla on the sidelines of a meeting with top EU officials in Brussels.

However, Czech Foreign Minister Jan Kohout stressed that human rights remained a matter of 'concern' for the EU, and noted that any decision to normalize relations would have to be taken by the bloc's member states.

'One of the biggest values of the EU is the safeguard of human rights. We expressed our concerns about human rights (in Cuba), and in June we will evaluate our common position,' said Kohout, whose country has in the past sided with anti-Castro hardliners.

The EU introduced mild sanctions against Cuba following its Black Spring crackdown on dissidents in 2003, when the country's communist regime arrested 75 government critics, including intellectuals and human-rights activists.

The sanctions, which included limits on high-level government visits and the role of EU diplomats in Cuba's cultural events, were suspended in 2005 and lifted by EU leaders in June, after Raul Castro took over control of the country from his ageing brother Fidel.

However, divisions among the EU's 27 member states on how to deal with Cuba have lead to a compromise solution whereby the bloc keeps reviewing its so-called 'common position' vis-a-vis Cuba once a year - a practice that Rodriguez Parrilla described on Monday as 'outdated' and 'obsolete.'

Louis Michel, the European Commissioner in charge of development and humanitarian aid, openly sided with doves such as Spain by proposing that governments should raise difficult questions such as human rights, but also 'listen to each other' and follow the principle of 'non-interference.'

'I believe that this political dialogue will finish at some moment and I hope that we will be able to lift, or at least modify, our common position soon,' Michel said.

Rodriguez Parrilla's visit to Brussels comes at a fluid time in the world's relations with the communist Caribbean island, after President Barack Obama recently relaxed travel restrictions for US citizens imposed by his predecessor, George W Bush.

While in Brussels, the minister was to meet the EU's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, and exchange views on a series of issues, including immigration and the imminent closure of the United States' infamous prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

EU foreign ministers are due to discuss whether to normalize relations with Cuba at a meeting scheduled to take place on June 15 in Luxembourg.