MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

EU will review Cuba's human rights record in 2006

As was expected European Union Foreign Affairs ministers decided Monday in Luxembourg not to re-establish diplomatic sanctions on Cuba, which were suspended earlier this year, despite a record of lack of “satisfactory progress” in human rights.

EU ministers approved a document reiterating the 25-nation bloc's intention to continue dialogue with the Fidel Castro regime, said Jean Asselborn, Luxembourg Foreign Minister currently chairing the EU rotating presidency.

Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos, whose Socialist government managed last January a suspension of diplomatic sanctions on Cuba, argued in Luxembourg in favour of giving rapprochement "more time to work".

Ministers said the policy would again be reviewed in June 2006.

In response to demands by Germany and the Czech Republic the document said dialogue with representatives of the 46-year-old one-party regime has as its main objective "tangible results in the areas of human rights, democratization and the release of political prisoners".

Germany and the Czech Republic strongly condemned the expelling last month of a group of EU parliament members and journalists who visited the island to participate as observers in a dissidents' congress.

EU sanctions were imposed in June 2003 in response to the arrests and conviction in summary trials of 75 peaceful Cuban dissidents, who were given lengthy prison sentences.

The now defunct sanctions froze relations, restricted official EU visits to Cuba and included inviting dissidents to national day celebrations at EU embassies in Havana.