Destroying the EU-Cuba Dialogue and Cooperation Agreement

By  José Manzaneda on February 23, 2022

The European right and ultra-right are, in the old continent, the spearhead of the global anti-Cuba strategy of the US State Department and the Cuban-American Mafia based in the state of Florida. They seek to extend the blockade against Cuba to Europe.

Its role is to undermine, until its destruction, the current Cuba-European Union Political Dialogue and Cooperation Agreement, and thus return to the policy marked by the so-called EU Common Position towards Cuba, a de facto pact between former Spanish President José María Aznar and the White House which, since 1996 and for 20 years, was an instrument of pressure and sanctions against Havana, complementary to the US blockade.

The current wave of dissimilar actions of political, media and economic pressure against Cuba by political organizations, such as the Popular Party, Vox and Ciudadanos, and “anti-Castro” associations and foundations based in Spain and financed and directed from the U.S., is part of this strategy.

It is “the moment”.

The strategy of harassment against Cuba takes place when the US government and its allies in Europe have considered it to be “the moment”: a situation of maximum weakness of the Cuban government. The combination of the last 243 economic sanctions, approved by Donald Trump and applied, in violation of his electoral promises, by Joe Biden, such as the closing of remittances or the persecution of oil transport to the Island, together with the pulverization of income from tourism due to the pandemic, have caused in Cuba a serious shortage of food, medicines and transportation, as well as a skyrocketing inflation.

The result of this was the July 2021 protests, a protest phenomenon unknown in six decades of Revolution that raised, as never before, the hopes of those who are working tirelessly to defeat the Revolution. A gigantic communications campaign in social networks, promoted by the State Department’s Internet Task Force for Cuba, an entity created in 2017 by Donald Trump, managed to channel the discontent, the product of weariness, hardship and despair, towards the Revolutionary Government and not towards the architects and propagandists of the blockade.

In July, the height of the crisis and the peak of the pandemic, a perfectly orchestrated campaign in social networks, using the hashtag “SOS Cuba”, managed to blame the alleged inefficiency of Cuban institutions for the hardships generated by the blockade, the sanctions and the pandemic, and to place, in the imagination of certain sectors of the population, as proof of the inequity of the system, certain undesired and temporary measures of salvation against the economic war, such as the opening of stores in foreign currency.

Today, the White House, the European right wing and the “anti-Castro” continue pressuring with the same hope: that the economic asphyxiation of the Cuban people, together with the media and social media bombardment, will lead the Cuban people to the definitive insurrection against the Revolutionary Government.

The US pays the extortion in Europe

This double track (economic asphyxiation and psychological warfare) has, in Europe, as allies: the parties of the right and ultra-right, mainly the European Popular Group; important media; and a network of “anti-Castro” organizations that have multiplied proportionally to the subsidies coming from the US.

Let us recall that Washington, through its agencies USAID and NED, channels, every year, between 20 and 30 million dollars to a swarm of “Cuban-themed” digital media and to more than fifty “anti-Castro” groups, mostly based in Miami. These, in turn, triangulate part of these funds not only to the so-called internal Cuban “dissidence”, but also to organizations located in Europe. Hence the absolute consistency and coherence between the messages and objectives of the White House with these paid groups, which present themselves as “human rights NGOs” or “Cuban exile associations” and carry out constant lobbying work with a very precise objective today: the destruction of EU-Cuba relations and the Political Dialogue and Cooperation Agreement.

Diversity of harassment actions in Europe

Today, we are facing a wave of dissimilar actions in favor of the extension to Europe of the blockade on Cuba, among them:

-The current campaign against tourism to the Island, with the aim of plugging income in a sector that, it is expected, will serve as a take-off ramp for the country’s recovery.

-The persecution of European companies with investments in Cuba, through acts of boycott and campaigns against their image, in coherence with the Helms-Burton Act. This is the case of Meliá Hotels, which has been a target of the State Department for years and whose executives have been sanctioned by the aforementioned law.

-The destruction of Cuba’s medical cooperation agreements with other countries, through the publication of reports on the alleged “labor slavery” of Cuban medical personnel. These reports, signed by European-based entities, aim to cut off the income that today sustains the island’s public health system and is at the root of the country’s current health problems.

-The boycott of Cuban artists on their tours in Europe, to prevent their performances and undermine their income, along the same lines as the veto already imposed on them in Miami.

-The violent harassment of Cuba’s diplomatic offices, such as the one applied, for months now, to the Cuban Consulate General in Barcelona, in clear violation of the Vienna Convention.

– The physical attacks on solidarity activists and the constant attempts to break up their events.

-The pressure on institutions to deny funds for cooperation in Cuba, accompanied by the criminalization of NGOs and solidarity groups.

-The lawsuits against journalists and solidarity activists with Cuba.

-And the motions against Cuba in parliaments and city councils for alleged “human rights violations”, based on the script written in Washington and Miami.

60 years of blockade, 30 UN condemnations

This February marked the 60th anniversary of the officialization of the US economic, financial and commercial blockade against the Cuban people which, de facto, began years earlier. This coming April will be the 30th time that the International Community, at the United Nations General Assembly, will demand that the US eliminate it.

Joe Biden’s government was expected to resume the “Obama way” of dialogue with Havana, or at least the lifting of some of the 243 sanction measures approved by Donald Trump, especially those affecting Cuban families living in both countries.

But then came the pandemic and the July protests, and the White House closed any possibility of rapprochement, hoping that the 60 years of economic warfare would finally bear the expected fruit: the defeat of the Revolution. But even in the worst economic scenario, with its paid jackals biting with desperation, even with all the roads closed from Europe, accompanied by International Solidarity, Cuba will resist.

José Manzaneda is coordinator of Cubainformación TV

Source: La Pupil Insomne, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English