Right-wing forces in European Parliament torpedo EU-Cuba relations

[Judi Lynn]

July 20, 2023 9:46 AM CDT BY W. T. WHITNEY JR.



The fascist and anti-communist VOX Party of Spain is leading the effort to sink EU-Cuba relations in the European Parliament. Here, VOX leader Santiago Abascal makes a speech in Madrid, March 19, 2022. Repeating typical right-wing falsehoods, party banners at the rally allege the media and the government are controlled by communists. | Paul White / AP


The Cuban musical duo Buena Fe (Good Faith) toured Spain in May. Thugs disrupted their concerts, forcing the cancelation of a few. A month later in Paris, protests orchestrated by a Cuban émigré university professor forced a prestigious poetry festival to take away the honorary presidency it had bestowed upon Cuban poet Nancy Morejón.

On July 12, Cuba’s unstable relations with European governments went from unstable to possibly disastrous. The European Parliament (EP) approved a “Resolution on the State of the EU-Cuba PDCA.” The vote was 359 in favor, 226 against, and 50 abstentions—signaling trouble ahead for Cuba.

The PDCA is the Political Dialogue and Cooperation Agreement that, signed in 2016, committed individual European countries to rely upon consensus and “constructive engagement” in their dealings with Cuba. It replaced the EU’s “Common Position” that, from 1998 on, promoted “interventionist, selective, and discriminatory” relations with Cuba.

Josep Borrell, the top EU diplomatic representative, visited Cuba in May. He was advocating for the PDCA as a means of “support for the increasingly important Cuban private sector” and for “the expanding economic reform taking place” in Cuba.

More:
https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/right-wing-forces-in-european-parliament-torpedo-eu-cuba-relations/