Despedimentos ilegais: reintegração pode ser excluída em todas as empresas e funções

[Keyser Soze]

06/20/2008 12:45 PM
OLIVE BRANCH FOR RAUL
EU Ends Diplomatic Sanctions on Cuba

A five-year ban on high-level visits to Europe by Cuban officials has been lifted by EU ministers, to the dismay of the United States. But the decision is more symbolic than practical, since Havana still doesn't like the EU's terms.

The European Union moved on Thursday to lift diplomatic sanctions against Cuba, hoping to nudge the communist nation toward more liberal reforms. But the move met criticism from the United States.

"We're disappointed," said Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for the National Security Council. "We think the Castros need to take a number of steps to improve the human rights conditions for ordinary Cubans before any sanctions are lifted."

But the move is largely symbolic. The sanctions banned high-level visits to EU nations by Cuban officials in 2003, after Fidel Castro's government arrested dozens of dissidents. They effectively fell out of force in 2005, when the EU tried -- unsuccessfully -- to repair relations with Havana.

But EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner felt it was time to nudge Cuba now that Raul Castro, Fidel's brother, has taken over as head of government. She said Europe will still impose tough conditions on re-establishing ties.

"There will be very clear language also on what the Cubans still have to do," she said, according to the Associated Press, "… releasing prisoners, really working on human rights questions. There will be a sort of review to see whether indeed something will have happened."

In return for sanction-free relations, the EU expects Cuba to release all political prisoners, allow ordinary Cubans access to the Internet, and give EU delegations to Cuba the freedom to meet dissidents as well as government officials. So far Cuba has resisted such reforms.

"We haven't softened our approach," said Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, according to the Associated Press. "It's a repressive regime. …Now we are very explicit on what we want. We want democratic changes."

EU ministers agreed to the new strategy on the margins of an EU summit on Thursday in Brussels.

The move was viewed in Washington as a break with US policy, which has maintained a variety of tough sanctions against the communist nation since 1960. President Kennedy made all travel and trade with Cuba illegal for US citizens in 1963.