EU foreign policy chief in Cuba to advance talks
Mogherini - Malmierca - Photo EC
(HAVANA) - The European Union's top diplomat visited Cuba Tuesday to give impetus to negotiations on normalizing ties, talks that some EU members fear will take a back seat to Havana's rapprochement with Washington.
Federica Mogherini, the highest ranking EU official ever to visit Cuba, said the fact she was traveling to Havana so soon after taking up the foreign policy chief job on November 1 showed how important the relationship was.
"My presence here in my first days in office shows our will to continue these meetings," she said, in comments reported by Cuban state news agency Prensa Latina.
After US President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro announced their countries' historic move to restore diplomatic ties on December 17, some of the 28 EU members reacted by demanding the bloc accelerate its own normalization talks with Cuba.
The calls were particularly urgent from Spain, which counts Cuba, its former colony, as a key trade partner and has a historic rivalry with the United States over the island.
Mogherini weighed in on Cuba's thaw with the United States, reiterating the EU's opposition to the US trade and financial embargo.
Despite the rapprochement, there is no immediate end in sight for the more than five-decade-old embargo, which Obama would need the blessing of the Republican-controlled Congress to lift.
"On the embargo, you know very well the longstanding position adopted by the EU. In particular, at this moment of dialogue between the United States and Cuba, there's no reason for the embargo to continue," she told Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez.
The EU suspended its relations with Cuba in 2003 over a crackdown on journalists and activists, but began talks to restore them in April 2014, aiming to persuade Havana to improve its human rights record.
But after two rounds of talks, Cuba postponed the third in December, when its secret negotiations with the United States were in full swing.
The third round was finally held earlier this month.
After those talks, the EU's chief negotiator, Christian Leffler, said the two sides still had to overcome "differences of interpretation" on key issues, including Havana's refusal to sign certain human rights treaties.
- 'Crucial moment' -
Both sides say the negotiations still have a long way to go.
"I would like the process to end as soon as possible, and preferably before the end of 2016, when I conclude my mission in the island," Herman Portocarero, the EU ambassador, said in a recent interview.
The EU said the visit comes at a "crucial moment" in the negotiations.
Eduardo Perera, a political scientist at the University of Havana, said the EU clearly had its eye on the parallel US-Cuban talks.
"In any scenario regarding Cuba, the EU would evaluate the state of Havana's relations with the United States. Not because that determines its actions 100 percent, but to take it into account as a strategic factor," he said.
Mogherini also met Cuban Foreign Trade and Investment Minister Rodrigo Malmierca, who is heading an initiative to attract foreign capital to the island under new, more liberal rules approved a year ago.
With $3.6 billion in trade in 2013, the EU is Cuba's second-biggest trade partner after Venezuela, and it is an important player in the Cuban tourism industry.
Mogherini later met Economy Minister Marino Murillo, the architect of the reforms that Castro has undertaken to revamp Cuba's stagnant Soviet-style economy.
A meeting with Castro was also a possibility.
The trip comes as Francois Hollande plans to become the first French president to visit Cuba, in May, and three weeks after a visit by Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni.