This Week in Europe, 12 May 2000
Executive Director of the Caribbean Council for Europe
On April 25th in Havana the Cuban Council of State took a decision that will have far reaching implications for both Cuba and the Caribbean in their future relations with the European Union (EU).
At the meeting the Cuban Government decided to "retire" its application to become a signatory to the successor arrangement to Lomé IV. Up to then, Cuba had hoped to be able to join the 71 African Caribbean and Pacific states (the ACP) in signing the new ACP/EU partnership agreement in Suva, Fiji on June 8. However, after participating fully as observers during the negotiating process in Brussels and having received unanimous endorsement of their application by the whole ACP group, circumstances arose which led the Cuban Government to decide that it could no longer seek to accede to the new arrangement.
The reasons for this are complex. As this column has previously suggested, unanimity among European Union (EU) member states on the Cuban application seemed by late April to be unlikely. Some countries such as France, Spain, Italy and Germany were positive. They had proposed that the EU relationship with Cuba might better advance if dialogue were to be conducted within the post Lomé development framework. This they suggested might be more productive than exchanges based on achieving the political conditions contained in Europe's common position on Cuba as this seeks to offer an enhanced relationship in return for prior changes in civil society. However, other member states were not so sure. In particular, Britain, the Netherlands and Denmark were not prepared to agree to Cuban accession at this time. Although the question had not been formally discussed in any EU Council, at least one Member State had let it be known that the conditions agreed for Cuban ACP membership at an EU Council meeting in June 1998, had not been met.
The first public sign of concern about what was happening in Europe came on April 25. Then Havana informed the EU that it was not willing to receive a delegation from the present EU troika (Finland, Portugal and France). The official explanation was Cuba’s anger about the way a number of EU member states had voted at the UN Human Rights Commission. Cuba’s response also related to its belief that certain EU nations were seeking to use the visit to determine whether the terms for accession to the successor agreement to Lomé IV had been met. Cuba rejected this approach on the basis that there should be no linkage between the agreed reason for the visit - an assessment on progress on the common position - and Havana’s desire to become a member of the ACP group.
But behind the cancellation of the Troika visit and the withdrawal of Cuba's post Lomé application lies a further, more complex web of political concerns.
It seems that on the European side, those member states intending to object or raise questions about Cuba's accession, were driven by other considerations. These in part related to concerns expressed by the United States; a fear of the resurrection of transatlantic trade disputes; possible damage to bilateral relations with the US in a year in which a new President would be elected; and a fear that new threats might emerge to the World Trade Organisation waiver required for the new Suva Convention, if Cuba were to be a signatory.
On the Cuban side, it appears there were also difficulties. There was concern amongst some in Havana who had originally argued that by becoming signatories to a Convention which contained political conditions Cuba was doing something it had never done before. That is to say it was about to cede a degree of sovereignty and political control to a third party, which in this case would be the European Union. This position it seems may have coincided with other differences over the extent to which Cuba should rely on its own resources or seek, over time, benefits through closer integration into the international economic community. Against this background, the probability of European rejection of Cuba's application seem to have tipped the political balance towards those who believe in self-reliance and that the post Lomé application should never have been made.
Despite the negative outcome of the post Lomé process for Cuba, its ministers have made clear that it will not affect its desire to deepen its relationship with the rest of the Caribbean region. It will continue to negotiate what is known as a partial scope agreement on trade with Caricom and seek to relate its positions at the WTO and elsewhere to those of the region. Cuba has also let it be known that its future is in the Caribbean region as a Caribbean nation.
Few in the European Union who were intending to raise objections to the Cuban application seem to have analysed closely the implications of Havana's decision to withdraw its application or to have seen the illogicality of their case. Instead of broadening the opportunities for dialogue with Havana on matters of concern, the EU nations raising objections have narrowed serious contact to a bilateral level. So much so that it may now be individual European nations desire for trade advantage which determines the velocity at which Cuba’s future relations with Europe develop.
Worse still, Cuba is now the only country in the Americas which has no formal basis for a relationship with the EU. The rejection of dialogue on the common position and the withdrawal from the post Lomé arrangements means that the framework for EU/Cuba relations is damaged and Europe divided. Despite improved bilateral relations with a number of key EU member states, the opportunity for a new Cuban dialogue with the Union as a whole has passed, along with whatever leverage Europe believed it might have.
It is unlikely that Cuba will ever again agree to be drawn into a multilateral arrangement that offers a mix of benefits in return for accepting political conditionalities. The decision to go down the post Lomé route was not lightly taken in Havana any more than was Cuban withdrawal in the face of the probable European rejection of its application. Although some in Europe believe that the Cuban application can be resuscitated in a matter of years the application is dead. The same opportunity for the EU will not arise again.
The decision is a setback for the ACP and the Caribbean. Many Governments saw the possibility of Cuban accession as an opportunity to not only complete the Caribbean integration process but as a basis on which real weight could be given to the region's case in international trade negotiations yet to come.
Among Caribbean ministers there is a real sense of an opportunity lost and a questioning of the way in which Europe still has influence over the region's future. Cuba's continuing externally enforced isolation and its withdrawal from inclusion in the ACP is a small but important moment in history. It should give pause for reflection.