EU Scraps Sanctions Against Cuba

The EU last night scrapped five-year-old sanctions against Cuba despite appeals from the US to maintain a tough line against the new government.

EU foreign ministers said they would ask Cuba, now run by Fidel Castro's brother, Raul, to improve its human rights record, release political prisoners and allow high-level EU officials to meet opposition figures.

The Czech foreign minister, Karel Schwarzenberg, who opposed the largely symbolic move, stressed: "There are still people in prisons and their situation is terrible."

There are about 230 political prisoners in Cuba, according to human rights activists in the country.

The Bush administration criticized the EU's move and said changes introduced under Raul Castro were merely cosmetic.

"We certainly don't see any kind of fundamental break with the Castro dictatorship that would give us reason to believe that now would be the time to lift sanctions," US state department spokesman Tom Casey said last night. "We would not be supportive of the EU or anyone else easing those restrictions at this time."

But the EU external relations commissioner, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, said Brussels felt it had to encourage changes in Cuba.

"There will be very clear language also on what the Cubans still have to do ... releasing prisoners, really working on human rights questions," she told reporters at an EU summit. "There will be a sort of review to see whether indeed something will have happened."

Spain led the push to drop the sanctions and open a dialog with Cuba, but met resistance from the EU's ex-communist members, led by the Czech Republic.

"Countries that had less inclination to lift the measures have asked that, within one year ... the results of political dialog on human rights be re-evaluated," the Spanish foreign minister, Miguel Angel Moratinos, said. "What is not going to be re-evaluated is imposing the measures because they have been lifted definitively."

On differences with the US, he said: "The United States has its policy on Cuba. We don't share it ... In the end, we have our interests and our autonomy in foreign policy."

The EU measures were imposed after a crackdown on dissent in Cuba in 2003 and included a freeze on visits by high-level officials. However, unlike the 1962 US embargo, they did not prevent trade and investment.

The EU sanctions were suspended in 2005, with complete abolition seen as a carrot to the new leadership to press on with reforms. Changes introduced under Raul Castro's government include allowing Cubans to buy cell phones and an increase in public debate.

However, a leading Cuban dissident, Oswaldo Paya, said he hoped the move did not signify the EU's approval of the new administration."This regime has not announced any change that is significant for rights or liberty, and we know we have to conquer that ourselves," Paya said.