eu and cuba relations under spain eu´s presidency

December 16, 2009 - Few days before Spain takes over the EU's six-month rotating presidency in January 2010, there are concerns that its Socialist government wants to dismantle the bloc's common position on Cuba. Spanish diplomacy wants to do it in a wrong way and for the wrong reasons, says Milan Nic in a commentary in Brussels-based weekly European Voice widely read by the EU´s decision-makers. Our colleague underlines that this move will be one of the first tests of the new EU's foreign policy arrangement under the Lisbon Treaty. You can read the commentary in European Voice here >>

Its Slovak version was published in daily SME, more here >>

Few weeks before us, also Cuban prisoners of conscience have raised their voice in an open letter to Spain.Signed by 37 dissidents, 33 of whom remain behind bars, criticised Spanish foreign minister Miguel Angel Moratinos for failing to meet with human rights campaigners during his two-day visit of Havana in October 2009. "The refusal to meet with the opposition, listen to its opinions and become aware of the suffering of political prisoners and their families is a sign of contempt which the minister already showed during his previous visit in 2007," the letter said. Noting that Spain is to assume the EU's rotating presidency in January 2010, the letter pleaded that "[this] attitude of contempt, with which the Spanish government treats Cuban democrats, should not encompass the entire European Union." More about the letter here >>