19
May
2026
Watch
Political repression and humanitarian situation in Cuba (debate)
Madam President, Vice-President Kallas, when will the Committee on People's and Socialists suspend the EU-Cuba Political Dialogue and Cooperation Agreement? What else does it take for them to do it all at once? You have several resolutions of the European Parliament. Testimonies from Cubans you have thousands; The last was that of political prisoner José Daniel Ferrer, who called in Parliament for an end to the Political Dialogue and Cooperation Agreement, as did Zoé Valdés or Rosa María Payá. It is an agreement that has made the European Union by the political leadership of the Commission a direct accomplice of a criminal regime, one of the longest-lived dictatorships that has been murdering, torturing and trampling on the rights and freedoms of the Cuban people for more than sixty-five years, and which, unfortunately, is so admired and defended from this side. But, ladies and gentlemen, this Parliament has called on the Commission to end the agreement, and that is all very well. However, at the same time the Cuban dictatorship is being whitewashed through the Euro‑Latin American Parliamentary Assembly. In December last year, several Cuban leaders were in the European Parliament on the occasion of its 15th assembly. That's an embarrassment, as well as intolerable. The criminal regime cannot under any circumstances be given the appearance of international legitimacy. Therefore, we have asked the members of the EuroLat Executive Board to put an end to this unspeakable anomaly, and if EuroLat does not have the capacity to prevent it, then its closure will have to be studied, because it is not possible to give oxygen to a criminal and Cuban dictatorship.